The History of Bilingual Education in the United States
The History of Bilingual Education in the United States
Roots
For many Americans today, the idea of teaching children in other languages is an affront to sacred traditions. Yesterday's immigrants allegedly prospered without special programs; glad to blend into the melting pot, they struggled to master the language of their adopted homeland. By operating in English only, public schools weaned students from other tongues and opened a new world of opportunities.
Early Immigrants
Ancestral legends die hard. Undoubtedly, some early newcomers were quick to assimilate and to advance themselves. But more often, "melting" was a process of hardships that lasted several generations. The immigrants' children were typically the first to achieve fluency in English, their grandchildren the first to finish high school, and their great-grandchildren the first to grow up in the middle class. Moreover, language minorities who were also racial minorities never had the option of joining the mainstream – whether they learned English or not – before the civil rights reforms of the 1960s.
Melting Pot?
Melting pot mythology obscures the diversity of cultures that have flourished in North America since the colonial period, and the aggressive efforts to preserve them, among both immigrants and indigenous minorities. In this history bilingual education has played a central, if overlooked, role. In 1664, when the settlement of New Netherland was ceded to the British crown, at least eighteen tongues were spoken on Manhattan Island, not counting Indian languages. Bilingualism was common among the working classes as well as the educated in the middle colonies of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. New arrivals naturally strived to preserve their heritage; language loyalties were strong. Indeed, these were among the values that had brought the Pilgrims to America.
Forefathers encouraged bilingual education
Evidence suggests that the framers of the U.S. Constitution believed that in a democracy government should leave language choices up to the people. They had no interest in promoting diversity, to be sure; the concept of cultural pluralism had yet to be invented. But according to the anthropologist Shirley Brice Heath, our early leaders placed a higher premium on political liberty than on linguistic homogeneity. Hence they adopted, in effect, "a policy not to have a policy" on language.
World War Patriotism
After the War
Post-war trends saw that minority tongues were devalued in the eyes of the younger generation. Meanwhile, the stream of non-English-speaking newcomers slowed to a trickle after 1924, when Congress enacted the strictest immigration quotas in the nation's history. Bilingual instruction continued in some parochial schools, mainly in rural areas of the Midwest, but by the late 1930s, it was virtually eradicated throughout the United States.
Spanish speakers
Spanish-speakers increasingly came under attack. One south Texas principal, quoted in the commission's 1972 report, explained the disciplinary policy in this way:
Our school is predominantly Latin American – 97 percent. We try to discourage the use of Spanish on the playground, in the halls, and in the classroom. We feel that the reason so many of our pupils are reading two to three years below grade level is because their English vocabulary is so limited. We are in complete accord that it is excellent to be bilingual or multilingual, but we must . . . stress the fact that practice makes perfect – that English is a very difficult language to master. Our pupils speak Spanish at home, at dances, on the playground, at athletic events. . . . We feel the least they can do is try to speak English at school.
English as a Second Language
Sociologist W. I. Thomas stated that what these "culturally inferior" children needed most was to master the language and values of the dominant society. The job of the schools, he argued, was to "change their culture," that is, to overcome students' handicaps of ethnic background and enable them to assimilate. English as a second language (ESL), a methodology developed in the 1930s to meet the needs of foreign diplomats and university students, was now prescribed for language-minority children.
However, public opinion felt that ESL students were learning English too slowly to keep up in other content areas. So there was little improvement in their long-term achievement. In the 1960s the dropout rate for Puerto Rican students in New York City was estimated at 60 percent; those who remained were almost automatically assigned to vocational tracks.
Recent trends
Recent years have witnessed a swing in the pendulum. Research in the 90's presented a resurgence in bilingual programs, programs that emphasized a strong support network in the child's primary language, while providing extensive instruction in ESL. Nonetheless, bilingual education was officially outlawed in the state of California in 1998.