“‘English Only': The movement to limit Spanish speaking in US’”
“The reactions against people who speak Spanish are probably not new," says Heidi Beirich, a researcher at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). The SPLC monitors hate groups in the US, which they define as any organisation that - based on its official statements or principles, the statements of its leaders, or its activities - has beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics. In this sense, the SPLC qualifies as hate groups several organisations that it considers anti-immigrant, such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and the Washington DC-based Center for Immigration Studies (CIS).
Also on their list is ProEnglish, which advocates for English to be designated as the official language of the United States. All of them were created in recent decades by John Tanton, a white American far-right nationalist, who died in July of this year. Mr. Tanton founded at least 12 anti-immigrant organisations, six of which have been designated hate groups by the SPLC. The aforementioned ProEnglish is one of the main organisations pushing the "English Only" movement, also known as "English First" or "Official English" movement. Part of ProEnglish's official platform states: "In a pluralistic nation such as ours, the function of government should be to foster and support the similarities that unite us, rather than institutionalise the differences that divide us." The organisation focuses its efforts on lobbying to convince legislators and public opinion of the need to adopt English as an official language at all levels of government.
While ProEnglish establishes on its website that "the right to use other languages must be respected", the group has been criticised by those who consider their agenda to be discriminatory. “They are careful to be called ProEnglish and not ‘anti- Spanish’. But it is clear that their ideology is supremacist, referring to English as a symbol of US cultural heritage when this country has never been a project only in English, says SPLC researcher Heidi Beirich.
Adapted from: DIÉZ, Beatriz. “‘English Only': The movement to limit Spanish speaking in US’”. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50550742
