Nativism Reborn?: The Official English Language Movement and the American States

Raymond Tatalovich has conducted the first detailed, systematic, and empirical study of the official English movement in the United States, seeking answers to two crucial questions: What motivations underlie the agitation for official English? Does the movement originate at the grassroots level or is it driven by elites?
Tatalovich hypothesized five possible motivations for the official English movement: race (hostility of the majority toward a minority), ethnicity (conflict between minorities), class (reaction by lower socio-economic groups), politics (partisan or ideological backlash), and culture (anti-foreign sentiment).
His analysis is based on an eclectic range of sources, from historical documents, legal records, and court decisions to news accounts and interviews. In many southern states where the issue has recently assumed prominence, he found that support for the initiative is identified as a residue of nativism. Tatalovich empirically shows linkage between support today for official English and opposition in the South to immigration in the 1920s.
This study not only is definitive but also is a dispassionate analysis of an issue that seems destined to become even more controversial in the next few years. It makes a notable contribution to the current debate over multiculturalism and will be of special interest to sociologists, historians of contemporary social history, linguists, legal scholars, and political scientists who study public policy, minority politics, and comparative state politics.

Raymond Tatalovich is professor of political science at Loyola University Chicago.