Making English Official Carries Risk

Recently, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation that proposes to make English the official language of the United States. Soon, the Senate will consider the bill and, if passed with no presidential veto, it will become a law. On the surface, this legislation may look innocent, so that a reasonable person may say, "What's the big fuss about it?"

No one disputes the fact that English is the de facto language of the United States. Moreover, English is the most useful international language of the post-colonial era. Many people around the globe are eager to learn English. In fact, most immigrants have at least a working knowledge of English, and the rest go to great lengths in their efforts to acquire the language of this land. Against this backdrop, passing a resolution into law which simply requires conducting government business in English should not seem to be unwarranted or unwelcome.

While opposition usually arises against any attempt to make English the de jure language of the United States from those language minorities who want their legitimate share in the heritage and composition of American society, the issue goes far beyond that. Many people fear that making English the official U.S. language is but one item in a hidden agenda by Anglo supremacist groups to annihilate the cultural identity of various ethnic groups that comprise American society.

This concern is not baseless. Appearing on C-SPAN in an effort to defend this legislation, Rep. Toby Roth (R-Wis.) alluded to this trend of "Anglocentricity," stating, "We do not want any hyphenate Americans in this country; we do not want Italian-Americans, Jewish-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Korean-Americans...." Roth added that we will not repeat the mistakes of the former Soviet Union by allowing multiple languages in our country, thus causing its disintegration.

This simplistic and xenophobic view disturbs many of the language minorities in the United States. What Roth is saying is that Communism had done too little in obliterating the national heritage of the Ukrainians, Armenians, Lithuanians and others, and that we should do a better job of it here in our country than yesterday's "Evil Empire." Moreover, Roth is inferring that all the refugees who were admitted by the U.S. government from the former Soviet Union should give up those same rights here for which they put their lives at risk under the "homogenizing" policies of Communism. What is implied is that since our most challenging adversary is now extinct, we can kiss goodbye human rights.

The trend of thought voiced by Roth is relative to the definition of what is known under international law as cultural genocide. To make groups of people think and act as Anglophones with no individual or collective will is to take away from them those characteristics that make them human. To control the mind of a population by imposing on it one's own ideological superstructure--language, values, etc.--is the most subtle form of slavery and dehumanization, and is as equally reprehensible as was the physical slavery of the black population of our country in the past. In one way, integration is tantamount to slavery; in one way, assimilation is tantamount to genocide.

Most sensitive to this issue are those groups that have been survivors of genocides. The Armenians, for example, who survived one of the most criminal regimes in the world in Ottoman Turkey, will never give up their struggle for the preservation and prosperity of their ethnic identity.

The political leadership of this country should be more visionary than to fall victim to narrow sectarian interests. It is not the absence of assimilatory policies that will cause the disintegration of this country, but their presence. Such policies, overt or covert, will carry with them the implied message of "war" against non-Anglo ethnicities. This may precipitate the formation of an anti-Anglo coalition, thus rending a great schism in our society. Besides its immediate domestic consequences, this would tarnish the American image overseas, sending the United States to the bottom rank of world democracies and weakening the U.S. leadership position in the world.

The erosion of America's international political role would naturally have a negative impact on the U.S. economy, which would, in turn, provide more emotional fuel for racist groups to find domestic scapegoats, thus generating a vicious cycle that could irreparably damage and even destroy American democracy.

I hope, however, that there are enough people who realize this, who will take a more responsible position on the deeper issues surrounding this legislation.

Armen Melikian was a special student in the graduate Department of Mathematics last year.