Hispanic Growth Points to Need for Official English

Assimilation Urged for Nation’s Largest Minority

WASHINGTON D.C. – The recent announcement by the U.S. Census Bureau that Hispanics, now numbering 39 million, are the largest minority group in the United States should be a wake up call. U.S. ENGLISH, Inc., the nation's oldest and largest citizens' action group dedicated to preserving the unifying role of the English language in the United States, today urged lawmakers to strengthen the American assimilation process to avoid a future of Canadian style language battles.

The Census Bureau’s announcement confirmed that Hispanics have overtaken blacks and are now the largest minority group in the United States. The latest figures show a 9.8% increase in the Hispanic population since the Census was taken in April 2000. Hispanics also accounted for half the national increase of the U.S. population in the same period.

U.S. ENGLISH, Inc. believes the rapid growth in the immigrant population is clearly overwhelming the assimilation process in the United States. This is most obvious in the area of English proficiency. The 2000 Census indicates that there are 21.3 million Americans (eight percent of the population) that cannot speak English proficiently. About 5.6 million of these people were born in the United States. This number has undoubtedly grown in the last three years.

If immigration trends continue, Hispanics will soon be the majority in the American Southwest and perhaps elsewhere. Unless integration is encouraged, this will result in a nation within a nation, or an “American Quebec.”

Mauro E. Mujica, Chairman of U.S. ENGLISH, Inc. is himself a Hispanic immigrant from Chile. He notes that we are running out of time to stop the growth of linguistic ghettoes. “With such rapid and unprecedented growth in the Hispanic community, it is vital that we bring back the assimilation process,” said Mr. Mujica. “Historically, learning English was the key component of the ‘melting pot.’ In order to get a job, vote, go to school or become a citizen, immigrants were expected to learn the national language. That is not the case anymore. Bilingual education, multilingual voting ballots, court and hospital translators and a multitude of other programs make it so there is less and less necessity to learn English to get by in daily life. This creates linguistic enclaves where the cycle repeats itself. Making English the official language of the U.S. will bring back the incentive for immigrants to learn English.”

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.