Proposition 63: English Only

Many of the supporters of Proposition 63 have assumed, along with S.I. Hayakawa and the U.S. English organization, that the simple act of declaring English as California’s (and, ultimately America’s) official language will unify the country and prevent that sort of divisiveness that occurs between Quebec and the rest of Canada.

This is a poorly informed view, marked with shortsightedness and with the kind of “quick-fix” rashness that we have seen many times in American life over the last 20 years.

If we would look at the long-range effect of Proposition 63, we could foresee that it will have results precisely opposite to those originally intended.

The fact is that more than 20 countries that have declared an official language actually have two or more languages in a co-official status (a list would include India, Israel, Switzerland, Tanzania, Pakistan, Finland, the Philippines and Peru).

Any nation with a democratic tradition finds that once an official language is established, pressure to declare still another can form from excluded groups.

In our case, we can imagine that members of a growing Hispanic population in California and elsewhere will come to resent the fact that their mother tongue has been legally displaced, and that as a result their voting rights have been threatened.

Within 25 years ethnic leaders will press to have English and Spanish declared as co-official American languages. Political force from other language groups, of course, would follow, and nothing could be done to stop it.

Unfortunately, supporters of Proposition 63 have not thought clearly and carefully about this consequence.

I urge a No vote on Proposition 63. If one takes the long view, the most divisive thing to do in this state is to declare an official language in the first place.

THOMAS S. DONAHUE

Professor of Linguistics

San Diego State University