As of Aug. 1, for the first time, this rural New England state has an official language: English.
Such a legal declaration, particularly in a state peopled almost entirely by English-speaking, home-grown Americans, may seem meaningless. But it has a deep political significance, one not lost on Sen. Bob Dole and other Republican presidential candidates eager to appeal to culturally conservative primary voters.
The GOP candidates, like legislators in 22 states that have adopted English-language laws, are seizing on a growing national fear of rising immigration, particularly its perceived threat to the continuation of a common, unifying language.
Republican front-runner Dole was only the latest to capitalize on anti-immigrant anxiety, raising the language issue on the campaign trail earlier this month.
Warning an enthusiastic gathering at the American Legion convention in Indianapolis that “ethnic separatism” threatens national unity, he warmly embraced the concept of a federal law declaring English the country’s official language.
Next month, a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee has scheduled hearings on just such a bill, which already has collected 186 co-sponsors.
Presidential candidate Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) is a co-sponsor of the Senate version of the same bill. Fellow Republican candidate Gov. Pete Wilson of California supported a successful 1986 referendum to bestow official-language status on English in his state.
And commentator-candidate Pat Buchanan has so identified himself with the language issue that he dubbed Dole’s Indiana speech “copyright infringement.”
Congress also has before it other, more aggressive bills that would eliminate funding for bilingual education and remove provisions in the Voting Rights Act that require foreign-language ballots under some circumstances.
By their nature and the rhetoric they inspire, even laws that simply declare English an official language inevitably inflame political passions and controversy.
Their proponents view them as essential to the future cohesiveness of a diverse American society. Their critics deplore them as right-wing instruments of thinly veiled xenophobia, if not racism.
For all the furor they foster, the official-language laws serve mostly a symbolic purpose. In New Hampshire, for example, the law simply requires English to be used in public documents and proceedings, something all state governments do anyway.
It does not regulate private commerce and does not directly address bilingual education or foreign-language ballots, neither of which exist in the state.
Nonetheless, similar laws are popping up in unlikely spots such as Montana and South Dakota. Driven by the efforts of lobbying groups such as U.S. English and English First, they reflect the fears of those who see the United States breaking down into linguistically segregated barrios, Chinatowns and immigrant ghettos.
“I have nothing against diversity, but I want people to be able to talk with each other,” said New Hampshire state Rep. Thomas Arnold, the Republican sponsor of the state’s new language law.
Similar sentiments have been gathering political and legal strength around the country. A San Francisco meatpacking company that imposed an English-only rule on employees was upheld in its policy by the federal courts a year ago.
House Speaker Newt Gingrich devoted a full chapter of his current best-selling book, “To Renew America,” to promoting official English laws.
“People are fed up with not being able to communicate, with going to stores and not being able to communicate, with walking down the street and not being able to communicate,” said Mauro Mujica, a retired architect who is chairman of U.S. English and is an immigrant from Chile.
Sometimes English-only sentiment results in the humiliation and anger of ethnic minorities, especially Spanish-speaking Americans.
Last month, a Texas judge berated a Mexican-born woman for “abusing her child” and consigning her daughter’s future to “the position of a housemaid” because she spoke only Spanish to the 5-year-old girl.
Critics contend the movement has less to do with opening up communication than it does with shutting out newcomers. Maryland Gov. Parris Glendening, a Democrat who vetoed an official-language bill passed by his state’s legislature in May, said immigrants would see the measure “as a message that they are not welcome in our state.”
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Nationally, Republican support of official English measures suggests ethnic minorities may not be welcome in the GOP, contends Rodolfo de la Garza, a professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin.
Despite determined Republican efforts to attract Hispanic voters, he said, “they consistently alienate (Latinos) by advocating policies that are insulting to them in a symbolic way.”
The recent wave of English-language measures has coincided with the passage of anti-immigration laws such as California’s Proposition 187, which forbids the state from providing services including childhood schooling to illegal immigrants.
“You cannot disassociate the whole language movement from the backlash and movement against immigration,” said Edward Chen, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California’s Language Rights Project.
Although it may have been newly resurrected as a political issue, American sensitivity over the English language and unassimilated ethnic groups is older than the republic.
As long ago as 1753, before the colonies had gained independence from Britain, Benjamin Franklin was writing Parliament to complain about German-speaking immigrants in Pennsylvania.
The first law declaring English an official language, passed in Louisiana, dates to 1811. And a provision in that state’s 1921 constitution prohibited anyone from speaking French on the grounds of a public school. Cajuns alive today still remember punishments such as being forced to kneel on hard grains of rice or corn.
Concern over just such punitive attitudes generates much of the opposition to official-language policies. The most vocal opposition has come from Hispanics, who form the largest immigrant group in the nation.
A Ford Foundation survey found that while Latinos overwhelmingly agreed that everyone living in the U.S. should learn English, a majority nonetheless opposed an official language.
“There is no opposition to learning English,” said De La Garza, the University of Texas professor who conducted the survey. “The problem is that many Hispanics have been punished for speaking Spanish and these laws would further punish people for a cultural difference.”
In the Chicago metropolitan area, most school programs that offer English as a second language are oversubscribed, said Dan Miller, who oversees adult education programs for the Illinois State Board of Education.
U.S. English’s Mujica sees English-language laws not as punitive but as a beneficial first step toward redirecting public funds to more English instruction. The money, he said, should come from eliminating bilingual education programs and government services provided in foreign languages.
Still, the notion that, after more than 200 years, government should codify how an American sounds disturbs people such as Paul Pare, deputy secretary of the Association Canado-Americaine, a fraternal benefits society based in Manchester.
“What we are talking about basically here is `What is an American?’ ” Pare said. “It was the adventurer, the New World spirit. . . .
“Subconsciously, we’re saying, `The adventure is over.’ If you don’t look like us and you don’t sound like us, you’re not welcome.”