Ethnicity, Values, and Language Policy in The United States

Abstract

Within the bilingual education movement there is an analysis of the situation regarding “assimilation” and “cultural pluralism” in the U.S. that is a threat to bilingual education. Many assume that a new social situation has asserted itself whereby “cultural pluralism” has become a more powerful value than “assimilation.” In fact, values have shifted toward tolerance toward minorities but not in favor of pluralism. There is a growing opposition to bilingual education which represents a strong continuity with American values that have been ignored by some proponents of the bilingual education movement. For one thing, the bilingual education movement has tended to be ahistorical and has failed to see the shortcomings of both extreme assimilationist and extreme pluralistic models of bilingual education. Ethnicity per se or even language per se may be insufficient explanations for the phenomena dealt with in connection with bilingual education. There is ample evidence of the benefits of bilingualism. However, policy that places bilingual education in the crossfire of the assimilationist-pluralist tension of American life threatens the existence of the program. Only when bilingualism is seen as an enrichment process rather than a social engineering scheme for minority groups, only when it is seen as a benefit for the entire community, as an asset to all individuals, will progress toward the goals of genuine functional bilingualism in the United States be seen.