A presentation to the Bilingual Forum sponsored by the Bilingual Education Committee of the United Teachers Los Angeles on September 16, 2006

The controversy around bilingual education is fundamentally a conflict about language, about democracy, and about social justice. It is not primarily a conflict about pedagogy, although the question of pedagogical efficacy is an element of the debate. To understand why I make such a definitive assertion we have to begin by asking ourselves a very basic question: How did (Standard) English become the dominant language in the United States?

The answer to this question is rooted in a history of colonialism, genocide, enslavement, annexation, and oppression that is often obscured in the debate about "what will help non-English speaking children learn English." The answer is not a pretty one, because it includes the genocide of millions of Indigenous Indians, the enslavement of millions of Africans and the murder of millions more, the annexation of half the territory of Mexico, and the oppression of its conquered peoples. Let's put it this way, the hundreds of North American Indian languages that have been lost were not lost because the Indians loved the sound of Chaucer's Tales and decided therefore that they would give up their own languages and adopt the King's English. The tens of millions of Africans who were brought in chains to the shores of the United States did not give up the languages of Yoruba, Bantu, and Swahili because they were enraptured by the lilt of Shakespeare's sonnets. Those languages were lost, and others (like Spanish) were subsumed to English at the point of a gun, the lash of the whip, and the power of empire.

Addressing this question in a serious way helps progressives and revolutionaries concerned with educational and social justice to understand the very oppressive, even bloody, foundation upon which rests the current dominance of "Standard English" in our schools and in US life, a fact that I would characterize as Eurocentric white supremacy in the realm of language.

Answering my question correctly also helps us to understand that the struggle around language -- whether it takes the form of bilingual education, Ebonics, or opposition to laws that would establish English as the official language of a state or the entire US (as was proposed in recent federal anti-immigrant legislation) -- is part of a very broad, very deep and historically rooted movement of oppressed peoples in the United States for complete equality, self-determination, and sovereignty.

We also need to understand that in our country the struggles around language, as well as the overall struggles of oppressed peoples for freedom and social justice, are deeply interconnected with factors of race and class. This is different from, say, the struggle of the Québécois in Canada, where nationality, but not race, is the decisive factor in their language and other conflicts with the English-speaking majority. That racism is clearly a factor in this debate is evident from the current pervasive attacks on brown-skinned Mexican and Latino immigrants, attacks in which a vigilante group like the Minutemen, the modern-day equivalent of the Ku Klux Klan, is given political legitimacy by the media and elected politicians. If you want to understand the real underlying motivation of many of the Minutemen, I refer you to an LA Times photo of one of their demonstrations at the Arizona border in which one of their members is carrying the Confederate flag, the ultimate symbol of racism and white supremacy. Of course, the Times neglected to comment on that symbolism in their caption for the photograph.

Why are we witnessing such an intense controversy over language at this point in our history? There are many different reasons for this, but the most important is probably the fact that the population of oppressed people of color is increasing at a much faster rate than that of Euro-Americans, and the percentage of people who speak a non-English language is growing at a much faster rate as well. Based on 2000 US census figures, there are in the US at least 50 million non-English speakers, a population greater than that of most nations in the UN. Despite all the English-only initiatives and attacks on bilingual education and the monotonous ravings of Lou Dobbs and Minutemen crazies, more people speak a language other than English in our country than ever before. And most of these non-English speakers are people of color, primarily Latino and Asian. More than 30 million Latinos speak primarily Spanish, and more than five million Asians speak Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, or Korean. This fact terrifies some people who fear the end of Eurocentric dominance (including that of Standard English) in all of society's institutions, and, even more so, the entire system of white privilege, a major underpinning of US capitalism.

What is at stake in the controversy over bilingual education, then, is much more than a pedagogical program, but the very future of our country. For the real underlying issue in this conflict is what type of society we want: do we want one in which there is true and complete equality including political, economic, and social (which embraces culture and language), or do we want to continue with a society based on white privilege and inequality. I think if we took a vote of everyone in this room, we would get a consensus for the first alternative. We would also want a society in which the common language of our many different peoples would be a voluntary choice, based on the needs for effective democratic governance, and the requirements of the economic system. The key word here is voluntary. The common language of our peoples, which might be English, would not come at the expense of anyone's language rights.

What does all of this complex history and political analysis mean for you, as teachers, as people who have a profound effect on the lives, self-image, and future of your students? What it means is that you, as teachers of non-English speaking students, can better understand the social and contemporary context in which they, and their families and communities, exist, in which they attempt to assert their rights to language and cultural equality, and in which they endeavor to learn. By advocating for bilingual education, you are not only advocating for sound pedagogy, but equally important, you are affirming the worth of your student, his or her family, and their community. Is this not an absolutely essential component of an enriched, quality education?

As an aside, you should also be aware of is that, almost from the beginning of the movement for bilingual education in this country, there has been a debate, within that movement, about whether the objective of bilingual education should be for the maintenance of the first language while the student is learning English, or for the transition of the student to English without consideration of the possible loss of the first language. The social movements that fought for bilingual education, and the educational community, never achieved consensus on this issue, but most bilingual programs that were finally established operated on the transitional model. It is also important for us to understand that bilingual education programs have never been adequately resourced to develop the teachers and materials that were needed to make the program most effective. Even so, the record of achievement of bilingual education is mostly positive. More importantly, these programs, imperfect as some of them were, communicated to millions of children that the language of their parents and foremothers is valid and precious. What an incredibly important value to share with our students. ¡Si, Se Puede!