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Overview

ProEnglish is a nonprofit organization that is among an array of national and state nonprofit organizations dedicated to ensuring that English be declared the official language of the federal, state, and local governments.

Founded in 1994 by former members of U.S. English (the national advocacy group founded in 1983 that spearheaded the "English-only" movement), ProEnglish says that it "is a member-supported, national, nonprofit organization working to educate the public about the need to protect English as our common language and to make it the official language of the United States." ProEnglish specializes "in providing pro-bono legal assistance to public and private agencies facing litigation or regulatory actions over language." (1)

The members of ProEnglish's board of directors are: Bob Park (chairman), Gerda Bikales, Leo Sorenson, and John Tanton. In 1988 Park founded Arizonans for Official English, the leading state organization that organized a successful initiative to make English the official language of Arizona, a measure that was later overturned. Before becoming a citizen activist in the issues of language and immigration restrictionism, Park had a 30-year career with the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). Bikales was the founding executive director and a board member of U.S. English. Before coming to U.S. English, she was on the staff of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), another organization founded by John Tanton and funded in part through U.S. Inc, a nonprofit funding channel he established. (2) Sorensen, another longtime restrictionist, was a leading proponent of Proposition 63 in California, which made English the official state language by constitutional amendment. He is the cofounder of E Pluribus Unum, an organization committed to forging "national unity." John Tanton is the founder of a network of language and immigration restrictionist organizations, and the owner of Social Contract Press. K.C. McAlpin is the organization's executive director and media spokesperson. (1)

ProEnglish's board of advisers includes the following members: Gerda Bikales (chair), Gwat Battacharjie, Daniel Benvenuti, Dinesh Desai, Robert Hannay, Phil Kent, Lupe Moreno, Dr. Rosalie Porter, John M. Templeton, Jr., and Jess Valdez. ProEnglish publishes The ProEnglish Advocate, a quarterly newsletter.

Origins and Impact

Founded in 1994 under the name English Language Advocates, ProEnglish's first project was to defend an official English initiative passed by the voters of Arizona, after the State of Arizona refused to appeal a decision overturning the initiative in federal court. (1) At least two of its principals-John Tanton and Gerda Bikales-are longtime activists in both language restriction and immigration restriction movements and organizations. Both also were members of informal think tank called WITAN (from the Old English term witenagemot, or council of wise men to advise the king) that attempted to set out a common agenda for the anti-immigration, official English, national unity, and population-control movements.

When the Arizona Republic published a 1986 WITAN memo shortly before the 1988 general elections, the memo's anti-Latino, white supremacist, and anti-Catholic language lent credence to the charges that the official English and immigration restrictionist movements were led by bigots. Following the release of the memo, Tanton and Bikales left U.S. English along with its executive director Linda Chavez. Other members included staff, directors, and associates of FAIR and other organizations that were then or would later become part of Tanton's network of anti-immigrant, population control, and English only organizations, such as Social Contract Press and Richard Lamm's 21st Century Fund. Another member was prominent ecologist Garrett Hardin, author of the influential "The Tragedy of the Commons" essay. Hardin has argued that immigration flows tax the "carrying capacity" of receiving societies. Hardin has argued for the construction of a 2,000-mile electronic fence along the U.S.-Mexico border. (2)

Applying the carrying capacity argument to the issue of bilingual education, ProEnglish board member Bikales has said that the rising numbers of non-English speakers "have stressed the cultural carrying capacity of our schools to the breaking point. If we do not wish to permanently turn our educational system into an engine for churning out members of a new multinational state who share neither language nor values, we must markedly slow down immigration." (2)

Through legal advocacy, lobbying, and public education, ProEnglish aims to further the following restrictionist objectives: banning "failed bilingual education programs" and increasing state-legislated English immersion programs in the schools; creation of a constitutional amendment or federal statute and supporting state referendums that will declare English the official language for all government-related or funded work and programs; opposing the admission of Puerto Rico as a new state because it has Spanish as an official language; and legislation and court decisions that prohibit the use of other languages in government documents, voting ballots, and tests for drivers' licenses.

ProEnglish says that since its founding it has become "the leading defender of the English language in court." Among its current court and legislative battles are multilingualism bill (E.O. 13166) signed by President Clinton (and not rescinded by President Bush), which ProEnglish calls "a blatant attempt to circumvent Congress and force multilingualism on the American people against their will." It is supporting an initiative introduced by Rep. Virgil Goode (R-Va.) that would make English the common, official language for all government proceedings, including judicial proceedings. ProEnglish is promoting a new report by the right-wing Lexington Institute titled "A Primer on Multicultural Education: Unifying for Divisive Force." According to ProEnglish the report shows how the type of multicultural education increasingly favored by public school systems "indoctrinates" students "by teaching only the negative aspects of American history."

Unlike U.S. English-its main national competitor in the "official language" movement-ProEnglish explicitly links language restriction, immigration restriction, cultural supremacy, and national unity issues. Another longtime English-only advocacy group is English First, online at: www.englishfirst.org.

ProEnglish has its own standards of what is or is not politically correct. It argues that English language advocates are smeared with the "English-only" label, when in fact they do not oppose the teaching of other languages or the use of other languages in the home environment. The politically correct description for the movement, according to ProEnglish, is "official English." However, its own advocacy, campaigns, and literature often give the impression that ProEnglish is alarmed at the use of any language but English. For example, it has advocated that its members support the effort by a white-owned restaurant in Page, Arizona to institute an English-only policy for its workers, 90 percent of whom are Navajo. Roughly nine of ten customers are also Navajo. The white family that owns the drive-in restaurant claims that the Navajo workers have used the Navajo language to speak badly about non-Navajo speaking workers, and that they should speak English only because they are in most cases bilingual. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has charged that this policy violates federal law. And ProEnglish commonly circulates reports about the increased use of Spanish at home and at work. (4)

Funding

ProEnglish provides no specific information on its funding, saying only that it has been "funded solely by voluntary contributions from our 50,000 members." (3) A 2002 report by the Southern Poverty Law Center on "The Network" created by John Tanton notes that ProEnglish is funded through U.S. Inc, a nonprofit created by Tanton to channel funds from right-wing contributors, such as the members of the Scaife family (who inherited the Mellon fortune), to anti-immigrant and English only groups. (5)