Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, one of the
first U.S. immigration laws, to exclude all people of Chinese
origin.
In 1942, 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent had their
homes and other property confiscated, and were interned in
camps until the end of World War II. At the same time, many
Jews fleeing Nazi Germany during that war were excluded under
regulations enacted in the 1920s.^2
In 2010, the Governor of Arizona signed a law that, if it is not
struck down by higher courts, will have institutionalized overtly
unconstitutional limitation of the rights of Mexican Americans,
all in the name of border security.With each immigration wave the focus of unease has shifted. Language
often becomes the focus of debate when these complex issues of
nationality, responsibility and privilege are raised. English, held up as the
symbol of the successfully assimilated immigrant, is promoted as the one
and the only possible language of a unified and healthy nation. Using
rhetoric which is uncomfortably reminiscent of discussions of race in
fascist regimes, a California Assemblyman notes the multilingual
commerce in his home town with considerable trepidation: “you can go
down and apply for a driver’s license test entirely in Chinese. You can
apply for welfare today entirely in Spanish. The supremacy of the English
language is under attack.”^3
In fact, history has established again and again that language cannot be
legislated. Grammar books may be written and taught, newspaper
columnists may rant, but such things have no real effect. Figure 13.2
makes it clear just how multilingual a nation the U.S. is.