[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 20 (Tuesday, February 13, 2001)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E161-E162]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       ENGLISH LANGUAGE AMENDMENT

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. JOHN T. DOOLITTLE

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 13, 2001

  Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Speaker, it is my distinct pleasure to reintroduce 
the English Language Amendment to the Constitution in the 107th 
Congress. I remain convinced that this nation of immigrants must once 
again be united under a common tongue.
  The notion that our nation's government must function in multiple 
tongues may appear to be compassionate. Yet recent events once again 
demonstrate that this apparently compassionate solution is simply not 
helping the people it may have been intended to help.
  The New York Times carried an urgent editorial on January 1st of this 
year, entitled ``Bungled Ballots in Chinatown.'' The Times noted that 
``Chinese-language ballots were translated incorrectly. The 
`Democratic' label was translated as `Republican' and `Republican' was 
rendered `Democratic' for state races.'' In addition, the Chinese 
instructions for choosing State Supreme Court justices were also 
flawed. The English instruction read ``Vote for any THREE'' candidates 
while the Chinese version asked voters to ``Vote for any FIVE.''
  How could mistakes like this happen? A quick overview of a manual for 
prospective professional translators, The Translator's Handbook by 
Moffey Sofer, suggests that correctly interpreting between two 
languages is more difficult than some may suppose. There is variation 
within every language, as anyone who has compared American English with 
British English knows all too well.
  In the case of Chinese, the language is presently written in both 
traditional and simplified characters and varies between the mainland 
and Taiwan. Sofer also notes that there are more problems translating 
between Spanish and English than between other languages and English 
because:

       [T]here is no single variety of Spanish. There are major 
     differences between the Spanish of Mexico, Central America, 
     northern South America and [s]outhern South America, not to 
     mention such places as Puerto Rico and . . . Spain.

  Cuban Spanish, Puerto Rican Spanish, Chicano Spanish and additional 
forms of Spanish all exist within the borders of the United States, 
creating vast potential for cross-cultural confusion. Thus, the English 
word ``eyeglasses'' must be translated as anteojos for one Hispanic 
community in the U.S., for another as gafas, while a third group 
prefers espejuelos and still another group refers to eyeglasses as 
lentes.
  Spanish and Chinese aren't the only languages which create 
translation challenges. The Translators Handbook also notes that 
``there are several spoken Arabic dialects which are not always 
mutually intelligible, such as Syrian and Egyptian and . . . even the 
official written Arabic has different terms and uses in different Arab 
countries.''
  In fact, translation difficulties are part of the dispute in the 
Middle East. A July 24, 1999 letter to the New York Times notes that UN 
Resolution 242 reads in English that Israel is to return unspecified 
``territory'' while the French version refers to ``the territory'' (le 
territorire).
  These difficulties of translation underscore the practical problems 
inherent to multilingual government. Millions of official documents 
multiplied by a multitude of language translations mean a potential for 
massive errors.
  Without an official language, there would be no legal standard to 
decide among competing translations of a government document in which 
the English version said one thing while the translation said something 
altogether different. My colleagues and I can spend hours negotiating 
over the exact wording of one phrase in one piece of legislation. We 
are all aware that wording matters.
  Mr. Speaker, these practical problems are about to multiply 
exponentially, thanks to President Clinton's Executive Order 13166.
  Executive Order 13166 received little media coverage when it was 
signed on August 11th, the last Friday before the Democratic Convention 
in Los Angeles. Executive Order 13166 will soon be major news with 
incalculable financial impact on every state, city and town.
  Executive Order 13166 is based on belief that to provide services 
solely in English could ``discriminate on the basis of national 
origin.'' Thus Clinton Executive Order 13166, as interpreted by the 
Office of Civil Rights in the Department of Justice, requires every 
recipient of

[[Page E162]]

federal funds, including ``a federally assisted zoo or theater . . . to 
take reasonable steps to provide meaningful opportunities for access'' 
by Limited English Proficient (LEP) individuals.
  How will Executive Order 13166 be enforced? The Maine Medical Center, 
based in Portland, now has nine official tongues and counting, thanks 
to a settlement with the Department of Health and Human Services' 
Office of Civil Rights.
  The Maine Medical Center is now required to post a ``Interpreter 
Availability Sign'' to be ``printed at least in English, Farsi, Khmer, 
Russian, Serbo-Croatian (Cyrillic and Roman alphabets), Somali, Spanish 
and Vietnamese.''
  In addition, hospital personnel must be ``inform[ed] that MMC's 
policy of providing in-person and telephone interpreter services to LEP 
(Limited English Proficient] persons is not limited to languages in 
which [the Interpreter Availability Sign] and other documents are 
printed.'' In other words, anyone who arrives at the front desk of the 
Maine Medical Center now has the right to insist on a translation into 
any language in the world.
  Mr. Speaker, allow me to turn next to the question of bilingual 
education, which the voters of my state abolished in June of 1998.
  Thanks to the passage of Proposition 227, more California children 
are learning English and getting ready to take their rightful place in 
American society.
  On August 20, 2000 the New York Times carried a story in its front 
page entitled: ``Increase in Test Scores Counters Dire Forecasts for 
Bilingual Ban.'' The story began:

       Two years after Californians voted to end bilingual 
     education and force a million Spanish-speaking students to 
     immerse themselves in English . . . those students are 
     improving in reading and other subjects at often striking 
     rates, according to standardized test scores released this 
     week. . . . The results are remarkable given predictions that 
     scores of Spanish-speaking students would plummet.
       Consider the experience of Ken Noonan, who . . . founded 
     the California Association of Bilingual Educators 30 years 
     ago . . . [he] warned in 1998 that children newly arrived 
     from Mexico and Central America would stop coming to school 
     if they were not gradually weaned off Spanish in traditional 
     bilingual classes.
       Now, he says he was wrong.
       ``I thought it would hurt kids,'' Mr. Noonan said of the 
     ballot initiative, which was called Proposition 227. ``The 
     exact reverse occurred, totally unexpected by me. The kids 
     began to learn--not pick up, but learn--formal English, oral 
     and written, far more quickly than I ever thought they 
     would.''

  There was more good news. While 29% of the state's limited English 
proficient students were enrolled in bilingual education programs prior 
to the passage of Prop. 227, the percentage dropped to 12% after the 
proposition was implemented. ``Even in the classrooms that had been 
designated as bilingual . . . teachers reveled that . . . their 
students were receiving much less literacy instruction in their primary 
language.''
  All this means that more California children of immigrants are being 
taught English. And test scores show they are learning it. Especially 
in the lower elementary grades, students who arrived at school speaking 
little or no English have made dramatic improvement in reading and 
mathematics.
  Mr. Speaker, these facts support making English America's official 
language. Let me now turn to the underlying message of this 
legislation. Opponents of official English claim legislation of this 
sort sends the wrong message to Hispanic Americans. They are wrong, as 
Hispanic Americans from all walks of life are quick to reply.
  The real message underlying this legislation was well-expressed by 
Everett Alvarez, Jr., who led the Republican Convention in the Pledge 
of Allegiance earlier this year.
  Everett Alvarez was the first American pilot shot down in Vietnam. 
Everett Alvarez is also a proud American of Hispanic descent. In his 
book, Code of Conduct, Alvarez said, ``I didn't spend eight-and-one-
half years of my life as a prisoner of war because I was Hispanic. I 
didn't get beat up because I was Hispanic. I was an American fighting 
man.'' Alvarez also had this to say about bilingual education:
  I am proud of being living proof that America is a country in which a 
person can overcome economic disadvantages and ethnic stereotypes. . . 
. I believe that education is the key to a successful and happy life in 
an open society. With that in mind, I oppose the movement to make 
Spanish (or any other foreign tongue) a second coequal language in 
American schools. This is a hindrance rather than a help to the young 
people who will eventually have to make their way in an English-
speaking society.
  Ernesto Ortiz, a South Texas ranch hand echoed this view. As quoted 
by John Silber, in his book Straight Shooting: ``My children learn in 
Spanish in school so they can grow up to be busboys and waiters. I 
teach them in English at home so they can grow up to be doctors and 
lawyers.''
  Alvarez and Ortiz are joined by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., who so 
eloquently spoke in his book, The Disuniting of America, of how: ``a 
common language is a necessary bond of national cohesion in so 
heterogeneous a nation as America. . . . [I]nstitutionalized 
bilingualism remains another source of the fragmentation of America, 
another threat to the dream of `one people.' ''
  The vision which underlies my English Language Amendment is the 
uniquely American vision of a nation of immigrants united by a common 
tongue. This is not only the popular position--official English has won 
handily in my home state of California--is also the right position.
  If passed by the Congress and ratified by the states, my English 
Language Amendment will provide permanent protection from the divisions 
and dangers of mandatory multilingualism. It is for this reason that I 
hope Congress will choose this particular approach, though it is a 
longer and harder road than simple legislation. This nation of 
immigrants needs a common tongue.
  I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the English Language 
Amendment.

                          ____________________