From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!esquire!brl-bmd!wmartin Newsgroups: net.nlang Title: Re: Official Languages - (nf) Article-I.D.: brl-bmd.330 Posted: Thu Aug 19 10:40:07 1982 Received: Fri Aug 20 04:24:48 1982 References: pur-ee.513 Undoubtedly those 21 senators have heavy Hispanic, oriental, or other ethnic constituencies. This whole issue is based on court decisions which have required schools to offer curricula in Spanish or other local languages, and not force children to operate in English in school. Many people believe that such maintenance of ethnic solidarity, or catering to minorities, depending on your viewpoint, has ill effects for the long term quality of the sense of "nationhood" and patriotism for the United States. Up until recently, every immigrant or child of immigrants was routinely expected to learn English to be able to exist in the general American lifestyle. Even though ethnic neighborhoods permitted adults to live out their lives speaking only their "old-country" language, their children were forced into learning English in school. These court decisions have changed that, and this has upset some people. Hence the "official language" legislative efforts. Will Martin