2. Roots of the Organization Railing against Hispanics
In order to account for the roots of the Hispanophobia of U.S
ENGLISH, one needs to keep in mind several factors.
Since 1965 thousands of Mexican immigrated to the US when the
Hart-Celler Act ended the national origin quotas established in 1924 and gave
preference to family reunification as well as skilled workers. In the 1970s, it
is said that 640,000 Mexicans entered the United States legally. 97
In the 1980s, they were 1, 656,000 to legally cross the border and in the
1990s, the number of reached 2, 249, 000. By 2000, Mexicans represented one
half of all immigrants entering the United States98.
Contrary to pre-WW1 immigration that was highly linguistically
diversified because immigrants came from all over the world speaking Italian,
German, French, Polish, Russian or Yiddish, since the 1990s half of those
entering the United States spoke a single non-English language, namely Spanish.
We have seen that for those like U.S ENGLISH who fight to protect the status of
English in the United States, the presence of Hispanics has been considered a
dominance.
Before accounting for what characterized immigration from
Mexico, one needs to put forward the reasons for the high number of people of
Hispanic origins in the US.
First of all, the historical presence of Hispanics in the
South of the United States is a determining factor accounting for their
presence in such areas. Before the 1846-1848 Mexican-American war almost all of
Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, California and Utah were part of Mexico.
One may wonder if the strong presence of Hispanic immigrants in the South West
of the country was not seen as a re-conquest by some anti-immigration
organizations.
The contiguity and closeness to their homeland with the
American soil and the size of the border may be a factor accounting for the
huge presence of Hispanics in America. This contiguity allowed the immigrants
to remain in close contact with their family and friends at home. The two
thousand mile border between the United States and Mexico made the crossing
quite easy for illegal immigrants and it also allowed them to keep in touch
with their friends and family. The cost of travel between the US and Mexico was
very cheap compared to the cost of travel between China and the US.
Another element to take into consideration is the regional or
sometimes urban concentration that characterizes Hispanic immigration. It is a
common belief that dispersion is essential to the assimilation process because
the more concentrated immigrants are, the slower and less complete their
assimilation. In the US, the largest concentration of Hispanics is
97 HUNTINGTON, Samuel, The Hispanic Challenge?,
March-April 2004, 16 pages, Foreign Policy. Web. 4 March 2010. p.
3.
98 Ibid.
situated in the South West, more particularly California. In
2000, nearly two thirds of Mexican immigrants were living in the West and half
of them in California (Huntington 3).
Furthermore, the economic differences between Mexico and the
United States were also a determining factor. It is likely that immigration
from Mexico will decline when the economic situation of Mexico approximates
that of the US.
Hispanic immigration, and particularly from Mexico, is also
characterized by its illegal character. It is estimated that during the 1990s
the number of illegal immigrants entering the U.S each year ranged from 105 000
(according to a binational Mexican American commission) to 350 000 (according
to the US Immigration and Naturalization Service). In reaction to this massive
number of illegal immigrants, the government passed the Immigration Reform and
Control Act of 1986. This act contained provisions to legalize the status of
existing illegal immigrants and to reduce future illegal immigration through
employer sanction. But as the figures showed, this act failed to reduce illegal
immigration.
Having explained the major reasons for the huge number of
Hispanics on American soil, our analysis can now turn to the relations U.S
ENGLISH has been accused of having with anti-immigration or hates groups in the
1980s.
To account for those connections, one needs to look at the
history of the movement itself. In 1983, Hayakawa founded U.S ENGLISH in
collaboration with Dr. John Tanton. In 1979, believing that the volume of
newcomers had overloaded the nation's assimilative mechanism? (Crawford 1992),
Tanton founded the Federal Association for Immigration Restriction (F.A.I.R)
and served as its Chairman until 1987. F.A.I.R calls for reduction in
immigration and a closer control of US borders.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, J. Tanton is
said to have funded several hate groups like the Population-Environment Balance
in 1973, the American Immigration Control Foundation in 1983, the American
Patrol/Voice of Citizens Together in 1992, the California Coalition for
Immigration Reform in 1994, the Californians for Population Stabilization in
1996, and Project USA in 199999.
In a 2009 report from the Southern Poverty Law Center entitled
The Nativist Lobby: Three Faces of Intolerance?, Tanton was accused of having
connections with White Supremacists, neo-Nazi and pro-eugenics leaders. The
report mentionned in its introduction that Tanton has made a series of racist
statements about Latinos and worried that they were
99 POTOK, Mark, The Nativist Lobby, Three Faces of
Intolerance?, Intelligence Report, Spring 2004, pp. 59- 63. Web. 5
Feb. 2010.n.p.
out breeding whites. At one point, he wrote candidly that, to
maintain American culture, a European-American majority? is required? (Potok
n.p). In February 2009, a few days after this report was published, Tanton
accused the Southern Poverty Law Center of wanting to shut up or shut down any
group that supports border security and enforcement of our nation's immigration
laws?100. Tanton said that this report is a textbook example of
special interest groups, driven by the need to scare donors into shelling out
more money, resorting to repeated, vicious smears and ad hominem attacks. They
seek to stifle legitimate debate over a pressing public policy issue: mass
immigration?(Potok n.p).
Mark Potok wrote in a report that FAIR, under Tanton's
leadership, was criticized for having been partially funded by the Pioneer
Found, a foundation dedicated to improving the character of the American
people? by, among other things, promoting the practice of eugenics or selective
breeding(Potok n.p). Tanton also joined the Zero Population Growth, and became
its national president in the mid 1970s. On its official website, Zero
Population Growth advocates progressive action to stabilize world population at
a level that can be sustained by Earth's resources?101.
It is important to note that the connections the movement had
with some White Supremacists, Neo-Nazi and the Zero Population Growth
organizations are not assumed by the movement itself but as we have seen a huge
number of reports pointed out their participation in this network.
J. Tanton formed a secretive strategy group called
WITAN102 in order to write a report about the non-economic
consequences of immigration in California and in the rest of United States?. In
this analysis, we choose to analyze an email send by J. Tanton in which he gave
recommendations to his attendees on the points he wanted to talk about in the
confidential memo that was then published in 1986, two years before he resigned
from U.S ENGLISH.
In that e-mail, one can read: those with their pants up are
going to get caught by those with their pants down!? and "a region of
low-native fertility combined with high immigration of high-fertility people
does not make for compatible trend lines!"(Annex V). Tanton referred to
Hispanics as those with their pants down?. He was worried that the
high-fertility rates of the Hispanics would lead to the end of America as a
white majority. Those fears were based on the population projection made by the
US Census Bureau in the 1980s that said that non-
100 TANTON, John, ?Press Release: John Tanton challenges Southern
Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to Debate over 'Lies'?, 3 Feb. 2009, Web. 5 March
2010. n.p.
101 Population Connection, Goals and Mission?, 2010, Official
Website, Web. 3 April 2010.
102 WITAN? from the Old English term witenagemot, or
council of wise men to advise the king.
whites such as Asians, Blacks and Hispanics will outnumber
whites in the United States by 2050(U.S Census Bureau 2000 n.p). Hispanic
immigrants have high fertility rates compared to other ethnic minority in the
United States hence a high number of children of Hispanic origins in American
schools. Similarly in his monograph Hayakawa expressed his concern about the
increasing size of the Spanish-speaking population of the nation.
The Hispanophobia expressed by Tanton finds its origin in this
population projection but in his memo, Tanton went further when he asked: How
will we make the transition from a dominant non-Hispanic society with a Spanish
influence to a dominant Spanish society with a non-Hispanic influence? ... As
Whites see their power and control over their lives declining, will they simply
go quietly into the night? Or will there be an explosion? ... We're building in
a deadly disunity. All great empires disintegrate, we want stability?(Annex V).
In his statements, Tanton warned of a Hispanic political takeover of the United
States through immigration and high birth rates. In fact, since the mid 1980s,
many US voters have been reacting defensively against racial, cultural and
language diversity brought by rising levels of immigration. Once again, we can
draw a parallel between Tanton's memo and Hayakawa's monograph because we have
now demonstrated that Hayakawa expressed his fears of an Hispanic political
takeover in America.
Tanton even rounded on Hispanics in the memo when he asked:
What in fact are the characteristics of Latin American culture, versus that of
the United States?? and Will Latin American migrants bring with them
the tradition of the mordida (bribe), the lack of involvement in public
affairs, etc.??(Annex V). He criticized and insulted Hispanics by giving them a
bad reputation. He also questioned their capacity to be educated when he asked:
What are the differences in educability between Hispanics (with their 50%
dropout rate) and Asiatics (with their excellent school records and long
tradition of scholarship)??(Annex V). As we know Hayakawa used exactly the same
technique in his 1985 monograph to promote U.S ENGLISH.
A comparison between the ideas defended by Tanton in his memo
and the views expressed by Hayakawa in his monograph highlights the ideological
connections between U.S ENGLISH and anti-immigration groups. It is important to
note that J. Tanton resigned from U.S ENGLISH in 1988 after the publication of
this confidential and controversial memo about the potential impact of the high
level of the Hispanic immigration. The publication of the memo created a
division among the members of U.S ENGLISH which led some of them to resign.
Research about the relations U.S ENGLISH were said to have with some
anti-immigration, racist, pro-eugenic and even xenophobic organizations,
confirms the hypothesis
that the movement may not encourage or promote immigration to
the United States. In this light, we can conclude that in the late 1980s U.S
ENGLISH aimed more at social control than social integration.
This network along U.S ENGLISH tends to prove that the
language movement emerged from the anti-immigration movement that was headed by
John Tanton. It is said that in the 1980s, much of U.S ENGLISH`s funding was
funneled through John Tanton's` anti-immigration movement but this is
impossible to demonstrate because U.S ENGLISH refused to disclose its funding
sources between 1983 and 1998.
Over the past 15 years U.S ENGLISH has been downplaying their
connections with anti-immigration groups and has adopted the rhetoric of
'English as an official language' in order to expand opportunities for
immigrants to learn and speak English. They have sought to portray themselves
as moderate and have avoided language that could be considered racist or
nativist.
Last but not least, it may be significantly noted the Naked
Truth? or Nudas Veritas? officially supports U.S ENGLISH on their official
website on which you may find a monograph written by M. Mujica in 2006,
entitled Politically Incorrect but the Naked truth? in the
subsection the spoiling of America?. In this monograph, one can read our
battle is for our way of life in America?. Nudas Veritas103 is
dedicated to fighting for America's life?. On their website, one can read the
following affirmations: We must restore our constitutional republic?, America
has been stolen from its American citizen?, English is our language, accept
American culture or leave? or I want you to speak English or get out? (parody
of Uncle's Sam war appeal). One has to be cautious because U.S ENGLISH may not
acknowledge those connections but the fact that they do not refute them can
also be understood as a possible relationship between the two organizations.
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