Ronald Schmidt - Language policy and identity politics in the United States

Cover

Page i

Page ii

In the series

MAPPING RACISMS

edited by Jo Carrillo, Darrell Y. Hamamoto, Rodolfo D. Torres, and E. Frances White

Page iii

Language Policy
and
Identity Politics
in the
United States

RONALD SCHMIDT, SR.

Page iv

Temple University Press, Philadelphia 19122 Copyright 2000 by Temple University All rights reserved Published 2000 Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.4-1984

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Schmidt, Ronald, 1943-

Language policy and identity politics in the United States / Ronald Schmidt, Sr.

p. cm. (Mapping racisms)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 1-56639-754-5 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 1-56639-755-3 (paper : alk. paper)

1. Language policy United States. 2. Americanization. 3. Pluralism (Social sciences) United States. I. Title. II. Series.

P119.32.U6 S36 2000

306.44'973dc21

99-087484

Page v

For Rosemary

Page vii

Page ix

LIKE OTHER authors, I have looked forward to thanking the many people who helped me in writing this book. The frame of reference that informs my work germinated more than three decades ago in a series of in-depth conversations with Lorenza Calvillo Craig and Albert Molina. The initial occasion was our mutual effort to define and shape an adult education program for Spanish-speaking migrant farm-workers in California's San Joaquin Valley, and this was followed by equally illuminating discussions during Lorenza's subsequent years as a member of the California State Board of Education. For their important contributions to my education on these matters, I am deeply grateful to both of them. My doctoral mentor at the University of California at Riverside, Michael D. Reagan, taught me that it is possible to study public policy systematically while engaging the normative issues that undergird all important policy conflicts. By his example and by his encouragement, he has been a source of inspiration for more than thirty years.

The actual writing and production of this book have taken a decade, and the materials and ideas contained within have been shaped and reshaped through professional conference papers, seminars, published articles and multiple book manuscript drafts. Through this long process I have incurred debts to numerous individuals who read, commented on, and/or discussed the ideas and words that evolved into the present work. At the project's beginning in 1990, a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar for College Teachers at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, led by Professor Crawford Young, provided an indispensable comparative perspective to a scholar schooled within a U.S. frame of reference. To the NEH and to everyone involved in that seminar, many thanks are due. During the ensuing decade, numerous other colleagues and friends participated with me in professional conferences where they heard, read, and gave helpful criticisms, suggestions, and encouragement on the research papers through which my

Page x

work has advanced. Among these are Tony Affigne, Manuel Avalos, Richard Bourhis, Raymond Breton, Joanne Bretzer, Max Castro, Fae Corsmo, Rodolfo de la Garza, Louis DeSipio, Luis Fraga, Patricia Gandara, F. Chris Garcia, Frank Gilliam, Fernando Guerra, Rodney Hero, Michael Jones-Correa, Jeff Lustig, Reynaldo Macias, Ben Marquez, David Marshall, Paula McClain, Dario Moreno, Noah Pickus, Jaime Regalado, Thomas Ricento, Wendy Sarvasy, Carol Schmid, Christine Sierra, Rogers Smith, Selma Sontagg, Raymond Tatalovich, and Terrence Wiley. Particular thanks are also due to the American Political Science Association and the Western Political Science Association for providing the institutional setting for most of these invaluable conferences.

Throughout my career as a scholar, I have been fortunate to have a faculty appointment at California State University, Long Beach. Although they are all members of a regional teaching institution suffering under an unconscionably heavy workload, my faculty, administrative, staff, and student colleagues at CSULB have succeeded against long odds in making our university a genuine learning community, and as such a continuing source of support and intellectual nourishment for my work. Numerous colleagues at CSULB have patiently supported my efforts by reading and commenting on papers and draft chapters, and/or by listening to my verbal attempts to refine the ideas that have now finally settled into print in this book. Among these are John Attinassi, Mary Caputi, Ken Curtis, Adela de la Torre, Larry George, Bob Gillespie, Maulana Karenga, Larry Martinez, Susan Luevano Molina, Federico Sanchez, George Scott, Christian Soe, Craig Stone, Terrence Wiley, and Terri Wright. I also owe special thanks to two other friends and colleagues at CSULB: Rodolfo Torres, who offered an unfailing support and encouragement throughout the book's long gestation, and then persuasively recruited the project for Temple University Press; and Charles Noble, who not only supported and advised me all along the way, but took time from a sabbatical to read the entire penultimate draft and make numerous helpful suggestions. Several other CSULB individuals and groups, moreover, supported the project, including my department chairs, Robert Delorme and Gerry Riposa, Dean Dorothy Abrahamse, Provost Karl Anatol, and members of the University Scholarly and Creative Activities Committee. CSULB President Robert Maxson, finally, has helped immeasurably by spread