Language Ban a Non-Starter
Denver Post
April 21, 2006

Editorial

The proposed ballot measure to amend Colorado's constitution to keep the state from doing any business in Spanish is a mean-spirited contrast to hard-working efforts underway in Washington to address the real hazards of illegal immigration.

State Sen. David Schulteis, a Colorado Springs Republican, sponsor of the English Only effort at the statehouse, said Tuesday that the state shouldn't require bilingual skills for workers or publish information in Spanish. School districts would be barred from requiring instruction in languages other than English.

The know-nothing resolution Schulteis is sponsoring also would bar public libraries from buying materials in a language other than English. Textbooks would be exempt. By that rationale, Thucydides' "History of the Peloponnesian War" in the original Greek or the Old Testament in Hebrew would be verboten - but not grammar texts for either language. We doubt Senor Schulteis will dwell on the distinction.

This isn't the first time that linguistic autocracy has surfaced in Colorado. In 1988, after Rep. Barbara Philips, R-Colorado Springs, failed to get an Official English bill through the legislature, Amendment 1 was petitioned onto the ballot and approved by voters. Colorado is one of 26 states that list only English as an official language.

The laws grew out of the U.S. English movement founded by Michigan ophthalmologist Dr. John Tanton and scholar S.I. Hayakawa in 1983. But a virulent anti-Latino memo by Tanton showed his true colors and later caused executive director Linda Chavez and board member Walter Cronkite to resign.

Then, as now, the debate over language was linked to concerns about immigration. So it's not a surprise that Fred Elbel, co-director of Defend Colorado Now, a group that backs a ballot measure to limit state services to illegal immigrants, hailed Schulteis' proposal. (Defend Colorado Now has received more than $42,000 from a Tanton foundation.)

Fears about the use of Spanish are groundless: A Pew Hispanic Center study shows that by the third generation, 78 percent of Latinos speak only English.

Meanwhile, society is better off if safety regulations, motor vehicle codes and other critical information is communicated as clearly as possible to newcomers.

Schulteis' resolution is unlikely to get the two-thirds majority needed to refer his measure to voters. And we're confident Colorado voters would reject such a blatantly xenophobic idea meant to stir up passions rather than contribute to a policy solution.