Overview

Cultural Pluralism and the governmental programs it has inspired, like bilingual education and multilingual ballots, have convinced many recent immigrants that it was not necessary to learn English to become American. The result has been disastrous; such immigrants have not only failed to assimilate into the American mainstream but also refused to assimilate. Worse, they are now encouraged to change the society in which they have settled in instead of assimilating into that society. In fact, Americanisation itself is now regarded un-American , and any attempt to declare English as the official language of U.S. government is branded as an Anglo-supremacist conspiracy to undermine and eliminate minority languages and cultures. Hundreds of limited-English-proficient students still languish in bilingual classes. English was recently banned in a Texas border town and Spanish declared its official language. The preservation of minority language is now a federal responsibility. A presidential candidate who declared support for Official English lost. Another candidate, who had campaigned saying that it was more important for Americans to make their children learn Spanish than for immigrants to learn English, now sits in the Oval Office. To prevent further calamities, English needs to be declared the official language of the United States. The Official English movement, which has succeeded in getting thirty states adopt English as their official language, is a concerted effort by mainstream Americans (not necessarily of Anglo-American Descent) to reinforce America's assimilation ideal and create an ethnically diverse but culturally united America, in line with the thinking of the Founding Fathers. A new model of assimilation, which rejects Cultural Pluralism as unsuitable for the American experience, is also the need of the hour.

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Saumyajit Ray, Ph.D. in American Studies (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi India) was a University Grants Commission Senior Research Fellow during his doctoral days. He has taught Political Science for years to undergraduate students of the University of Calcutta (Calcutta, now Kolkata) and Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University (Delhi). He has contributed journal articles and book chapters on multiculturalism, terrorism, U.S. politics, and U.S.-India relations.

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