“Let us strive,” stated Professor James Woodburn at an address to the Indiana State Teachers’ Association in the midst of World War I, “to save America from being a polyglot nation – a conglomeration of tongues and nationalities, like a polyglot boardinghouse” (Ramsey, 20). The question of language and minority rights is both historically and modernly a contentious issue in American politics: since the twentieth century, an enduring part of the political landscape has been dominated by the essentialization of the language – identity link by white native interest groups — a kind of recurring dialectic construction of what it means to be American – forged by the perceived threats of demographic and economic changes from immigrants. Despite massive shifts in voter demographics since Woodburn’s address, the political reconstruction of a national narrative on linguistic and ethnic grounds is still a modern occurrence.
On the June 1997 California ballot, Prop 227 offered voters a chance to weigh in on whether limited English proficiency (LEP) students should be taught primarily in English in public schools. While many powerful political opponents saw the referendum as the product of an underlying nativist backlash, it was spearheaded by Silicon Valley millionaire Ron Unz as the best way to integrate the state’s rising immigrant population. However, the initiative had a surprising outcome: not only were anti-immigration conservatives supportive, but large blocs of Latino/a voters also favored the bill.
The fact that Anglo voters, coming from a lineage of long-standing suspicion of immigrants, and ethnically diverse populations, who fought against detrimental policy impacts from anti-integrative voters throughout the 1990s, were able to converge on a culturally significant educational policy is an outcome tied integrally to the way that different groups value social, economic, and political assimilation. Despite making it much harder for LEP students to pursue bilingual education programs, and despite California’s diversifying voter blocs, how was Prop 227 narratively framed to create its distinct voter composition and how much of it’s successful framing was tied to the referendum process? This question will be explored by looking at the historical battle between language policy and identity, examining Prop 227 in relation to similar California referendums that received markedly different voter responses, and determining how successful framing is captured in direct-vote processes.
In order to understand Prop 227’s outcome in relation to the question of narrative framing, it is vital to examine the role of historical attitudes towards language educational policy as the outgrowth of the recurring reconstruction of national identity on linguistic grounds. Alongside the history of schooling in the United States is a plentiful tradition of bilingual education and native language instruction: in the first half of the nineteenth century, communities had first begun to bring children together for the purpose of educating them which often occurred in multiple languages — German and Dutch were taught in Pennsylvania, French in Louisiana, and Spanish in Texas (Blanton, 23). In this time period, there was an acceptance of linguistic pluralism and monolingualism which was reflected through public policy.
However, this acceptance was bounded: many indigenous and Mexican communities’ languages were systematically segregated from the educational system. The essentialization of the English language to Americanism emerged at the turn of the century as a reaction the influx of immigrants from non-English speaking parts of Europe which was consanguineous with restrictive immigration policies; in fact, the central purpose of the development of compulsory education was to Americanize students in an effort to assimilate the new immigrants from Eastern Europe (Bybee, 139). Competing perspectives on multilingualism and English-only instruction led to two dueling perspectives on education: “Sink or Swim” policy versus dual language instruction programs.
From the 1920’s to the 1960s, English immersion policies were the dominant method of instruction for LEP children in what was dubbed “Sink or Swim” policy; there were no remedial services and students had to remain at the same grade level until English was mastered enough to advance in subject matter. Through several Supreme court cases, the official “English only” pedagogical approach was overturned throughout the middle of the twentieth century. Choices in educational policy determined at the state and local level became the new political battleground for the construction of national identity narratives determined partly by nativist fears over cultural and economic changes.
More recently, political initiatives at the state level have wrought marked changes in the politics of education. “The continuing ideology of cultural and linguistic assimilation and the relative power and status of different world languages have spawned conflicting social and political agendas that play themselves out in reform initiatives in the public schools” (Mora, 142). Modern language education is dominated by two competing perspectives: some voters support bilingual education based on the programs’ goal to produce students with formal biliteracy skills (dual language immersion), while others support programs that are designed merely to achieve proficiency in the dominant language through remedial support.
The historical shifts in language policy throughout the last two centuries inform how Prop 227 was yet another response to the question of how to effectively educate the diversifying population. Furthermore, the response was just as much an answer to question of how to preserve perceived prosperous economic and cultural conditions. Yet again, language policy recodified the belief that English acquisition was a fundamental prerequisite to claiming national identity; simultaneously, this was a silent affirmation that non-English languages prevented a full manifestation of American identity.
When examining the impact of framing on the voter composition of Prop 227, the influence of historical approaches cannot be overstated: modernly, language policy is a battle between minority populations who purport that “historic underachievement can be explained by structural exclusion, inappropriate education, and school discrimination” and Anglo conservative groups who argue that homogenous cultures are essential for a functioning society (San Miguel, Ind. California School District v. Salvatierra). The way that Prop 227’s political framing was able to capture both white conservatives and Latino/a voters support is an outgrowth — a response to the recurring dialogue — of the fundamental feud surrounding language educational policy in the United States.
The Role of Framing: Comparing Voter Responses to Language Education Policy Initiatives
Despite over thirty years of both federal and state government support for bilingual education, California significantly restricted bilingual schooling with the passage of Prop 227 by 61% of the electorate. Under the new program, LEP students were taught “overwhelmingly in English” through sheltered English immersion programs during a transition period until sufficient mastery was achieved. Over thirty-seven percent of Latino voters and seventy-four percent of white conservative voters were in support of the referendum, in contrast with previous immigrant assimilation referendums that received anywhere from ten to twenty percent Latino/a support in the 1990s. Prop 227’s distinct supporter composition is a product of the way that varying, and often conflicting, voter interests were captured by the powerful reframing of what it means to be a socially, economically, and culturally integrated unit of American society. In concern over the passage of state-level assimilation initiatives in the 1980s, Ronald Reagan stated: “[Hispanics] are conservatives, they just don’t know it”.
Considering that Prop 227 was universally opposed by California’s political elite (excluding one governor), and considering that the supporter campaign received a quarter of the funding of the opposition, the role of narrative framing in 227’s outcome becomes an even more stark factor in explaining it’s break from customary political patterns. Ron Unz, the largest donor and most outspoken sponsor of the referendum, framed 227 as the best way to economically integrate California’s rising immigrant population and coupled this with indirect appeals to nativist fears over demographic and cultural changes.
In a major press release leading up to the vote, Unz wrote that the current state of bilingual education was “Spanish only instruction” that left the children of immigrants socioeconomically impaired, stating that students were taught in “only thirty minutes of English instruction per day” and that bilingual education programs had a “ninety-five percent failure rate”. In the same statement, Unz captured conservative interest by stating that inefficient government spending led to perverse incentives that financially awarded schools for not adequately teaching English: “School districts are provided with extra dollars for each child who doesn’t know English… administrators are awarded for not teaching English to young children and penalized for each child who becomes fluent” (Unz, 1997).
Unz managed to indirectly tie together Anglo conservative fears over cultural changes and economic downturn, as well as capture immigrant parents’ fears over their children’s economic success, without ever directly recalling racial or nativist tropes in his rhetoric; during Governor Wilson’s 1994 campaign, Unz argued that Wilson’s direct exploitation of nativist fears was “sacrificing the long-term future of the Republican party and America itself”. In order for 227 to succeed with Latino/a voters, Unz had to fashion a message that was simultaneously pro-Latino, pro-immigrant, and pro-assimilation; he purported that the English language was a fundamental component of economic success and that a functional society could only be crafted through homogeneous cultural values. “Unz’ campaign for Prop 227 necessitated the negotiation of multiple stakeholders, including national politicians, Latino/a citizens, immigrants, and Anglo citizens” (Cisneros, 20).
Unlike national Republican campaigns in the 1980s which particularized their address to white conservatives and Hispanic blocs in seperate ad campaigns, all ads from the 227 campaign were targeted towards the general public which “demanded crafting an argumentative strategy [that] could appeal to [all voters]”. The campaign rested on the criticism of bilingual education as an ineffective and misguided welfare policy without explicitly mentioning the tradition of “Sink or Swim” policies which would have alienated potential supporters. In summation, Prop 277’s success was stipulated on a narrative strategy which had to appeal to conservatives who had supported prior ballot initiatives while avoiding both the alienation of Latinos and allegations of nativism.
As Burke notes in his arguments from dialectic-rhetorical transcendence: “the resolution of competing ideologies, [of ‘us versus them’ identifications], is a Platonic transcendence as the solution – a solution that leads, on the one hand, toward ‘pure persuasion’ and ‘ultimate identification’ and, on the other, toward the pragmatics of a new rhetoric” (Biesecker, 43). In other words, transcendence involves an attempt to reconcile opposites by a higher synthesis of values and arises out of intransigent conflict in public values – values that are “heightened to the point of crisis, necessitating scrupulous choices between acceptance and rejection of [policy options]” (Burke, 80).
Unz reframed the normative division between “Sink or Swim” policies versus dual language immersion programs, which had been mired in nativist and racialized appeals, into a new transcendent frame that pitted well-meaning parents against “unruly government programs and educational bureaucrats” (Cisneros, 23). By shifting the language education debate to a shared goal – ie, American unity and effectualizing the public school system – Unz fashioned a new narrative frame that his persuasive appeal could be constructed on. To Unz, attempts to compensate for LEP language barriers led to a bureaucratic system of segregation that undermined the education of both immigrants and non-immigrants; this argument, coupled with his arguments concerning bilingual education as a bloated welfare policy, synthesized the higher values of both Latino/a voters and Anglo conservative voters.
Arguments from transcendence resolve uncompromising positions which provided Unz the convenience of deflecting criticism from the anti-227 campaign, claiming that Unz was employing nativist and racial tropes.
Unz’ attempts to inclusively target different groups of voters can be seen in his alliance with several key Mexican-American associations and Spanish teachers groups, who vouched that bilingual education had led to perverse outcomes which left the children of immigrants ill-suited to handle American economic and cultural life. Around the time of the campaign, Spanish speaking children were used at the forefront of the debate in several news specials with Unz: “[my parents] don’t want me to work with machines. They want me to be a person, like a doctor, a teacher”, one Mexican-American third grader stated.
In an ABC news special, one parent stated in Spanish: “The bilingual education programs need to change. My children did not catch anything from English for a long time – not from the bilingual classes”. Unz heavily referenced the 1996 Latino boycott as Los Angeles’ ninth street elementary school, a two week long boycott staged by Latino parents in protest of bilingual education which, he claimed, “directly inspired the ‘English for the Children’ Prop 227 initiative”. Some would argue that the role of framing plays a subsidiary role to Latino/a parents’ natural interest in their children’s economic success; however, the fact that Unz attempted to inclusively target potential supporters is a distinct break from the pattern of similar California referendums that alienated Latino/a voters and captured markedly dissimilar voter groups’ support.
