By Natalia Tomczak
Community Outreach Coordinator
“This is America. Speak English.”
This phrase is now backed by an executive order that was signed by President Donald Trump on March 1, which designated English as the official language of the United States.
The White House expressed that this executive order is symbolic to the nation’s founding documents, and therefore American culture. It also indicated that the action will promote unity and assimilation with new Americans.
I’d argue it does the complete opposite. This executive order is quite intentional with its wording — making it just contradictory enough that you may have missed the real meaning behind it.
The White House's official website states that “this order recognizes and celebrates the long tradition of multilingual American citizens who have learned English and passed it to their children for generations to come.”
Rather than celebrating multilingual American citizens by preserving their linguistic heritage, this is a celebration of assimilation to American culture. This does not celebrate multilingualism and multiculturalism, but rather celebrates the loss of one’s non-American identity.
This executive order does not celebrate immigrants; it alienates them. Through this order, the government has explicitly revoked executive order 13166, signed in 2000 to improve access to services for people with limited English proficiency.
The aim of this order was to enforce Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on a person’s national origin.
The White House's official website says that agencies do not need to get rid of services they provide for languages other than English, but that they may “make decisions as they deem necessary.”
Essentially, upholding this civil right is no longer mandatory. Communication is made optional, and U.S. citizens are left unprotected against language-based discrimination. This order is an inherent undoing of previous protections, but it is promoted in the name of unity and liberty.
This order reflects American nativist mentalities that those who are born in America are superior to those who come to America from another county, and therefore speaking English is the superior mode of communication. This mentality discourages the use of minority languages and promotes the English language as a part of national identity.
Beyond what this implies for speakers of languages other than English in the U.S., what does it imply for those who are disabled? Who may need interpreters, who are non-speaking or who may use alternative communication devices?
Beyond nativist undertones, this order has ableist implications.
To make English the official language of the U.S. is at odds with American principles and its history. As of March, the U.S. has been added to the international watchlist for nations with declining civic freedoms, and this executive order is a reflection of this decline.
The U.S. was founded upon ideals of freedom and has always been full of diversity. The English language is full of loan words from Native American languages, Spanish, African languages, Italian, German, French, Yiddish and more.
Not only do they enrich the English language, they enrich the culture of the U.S. founding documents like the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, focused on principles of liberty, diversity and the rights of citizens.
To make English the official language would restrict the cultural and linguistic freedoms of citizens by imposing uniformity, not inclusivity. English has become the dominant, or de facto, language of the U.S., but to make it official will cause an increase in linguistic discrimination, backed by the federal government.
Language is inextricably tied to identity. The number of people in the U.S. who speak a language other than English in the home has nearly tripled from 1980 to 2019, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
When Latino adults were surveyed in 2011, 87% said Latino immigrants need to learn English to succeed, while 95% said it is important that future generations of U.S. Hispanics learn to speak Spanish.
As a Hispanic American, language is one of the most important ties I have to my culture. The mother tongue usually dies within three generations, and often Spanish disappears among Hispanic Americans.
Encouraging English discourages people from using their language of heritage, and in turn, separates them from their Hispanic identity. While assimilation can be helpful for success in American society, it's important to ask why.
Why must someone lose ties with their heritage in order to find success? Why would the U.S. want to promote this by making English the official language, instead of celebrating diversity?
Promoting English disintegrates the cultural pride of non-English or multilingual Americans, urging them to prioritize English and the culture of the U.S. by forgetting their own. In reality, cultural pride and American pride can exist side by side, and Americans should not have to choose between the two.
Non-English speakers will always exist in the U.S. They will exist whether or not English is the official language. They will exist whether or not they are protected legally. They will exist, whether or not current non-English speakers learn English. Non-English speakers do not simply go away.
Diversity is part of American culture, whether the government wants to celebrate it or not. We often describe English learners’ way of speaking as a so-called broken English. It's not broken. And they’re not going anywhere. I have relatives who have lived in the U.S. for longer than they have lived in Argentina, yet their English will forever be described as broken.
Should American citizens be alienated simply because they weren’t born in America? Alienated because English is not their first language? Does it make them less of a U.S. citizen?
Promoting assimilation by othering non-native English speakers does not unify, it divides.
