Abstract
The United States developed as a settler colony that established its independence by breaking away from Great Britain. Political independence from England did not diminish the stature of the English language. English played a central part in the effort to forge a unitary American nationality embracing Europeans of diverse background. Attempts to establish English as an official language have since been a salient feature of the politics of Americanization. While the legislative achievements of “official English” movements have been uneven, they reflect a wider critique of the perceived fragmentation of US civic life. Over time, the leading critiques of fragmentation have shifted away from concern about European immigrants and towards concern about the place of hemispheric Spanish-speakers and African-Americans in US political culture and public affairs. As a result, the debate over multiculturalism has come to uneasily group together questions of language, race and nationality in the land of E pluribus unum.
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