Los Angeles Daily News Highlights Growth of ‘English-Optional’ Communities

“All that you need in California is Spanish,” says one resident

A recent article in the Los Angeles Daily News reveals that many immigrants are consciously forgoing learning English, deeming the language ‘less important’ than others. Focusing on the city’s Koreatown, journalist Rachel Uranga touched on the disturbing trend created by government multilingualism – people and communities removed from the English speaking mainstream. Yoon Seong, a 60-year old living in West Hills area of Los Angeles sums it up this way “I don’t need English here. All that you need in California is Spanish.” Martin Paik, a Korean immigrant who came to the United States via Argentina says plainly, “I haven’t found any inconvenience because I don’t speak English… If you can speak Spanish, you can drive, employers can have clients, you can order in restaurants, you can do anything.”

“The development of ‘English-optional’ communities in the United States is a problem that we as a nation ignore at our peril,” noted Mauro E. Mujica, Chairman of the Board of U.S. English, Inc. “Recent tragedies have revealed the extreme hardships we face in getting out urgent communication in our common language. Now imagine the difficulties we will face getting any message – educational, business, emergency – through the wall of the language barrier in these neighborhoods.”

After dwindling since the World War I era, the number of households isolated by the language barrier has skyrocketed since 1980. According to the U.S. Census, the number of “linguistically isolated” households, homes where no one over the age of 14 speaks English at home or speaks another language and speaks English very well, has surged from 2.9 million in 1990 to 4.4 million in 2000. More than 1-in-25 households in the United States now fall into this category, including nearly 1-in-10 in California and 1-in-13 in New York.

“American homes and neighborhoods have always had their unique languages, but they have always been tied to the rest of the nation through their knowledge of English,” continued Mujica. “The growth of multilingual forms, ballots and instructions has loosened that tie. With items such as Social Security documents in 16 languages and 45 states offering driver’s license exams in languages other than English, we have made it entirely possible for adult immigrants to go about their lives without ever having to learn our common language. This is a sad development for a proud nation and one we should immediately address.”

U.S. English, Inc. is the nation's oldest and largest non-partisan citizens' action group dedicated to preserving the unifying role of the English language in the United States. Founded in 1983 by the late Sen. S.I. Hayakawa of California, U.S. English, Inc. (www.usenglish.org) now has more than 1.8 million members.