its people a distinct name is to refuse to acknowledge them. There is a
shorthand at work here, and that is, there is only one acceptable choice: it
is not enough for 44 million Spanish speakers to become bilingual: they
must learn the right English – and following from that, the right U.S.
culture, into which they must assimilate completely. Certainly Spanish
speakers feel that discrimination toward them has more to do with
language than with immigration status, skin color or economics (Figure
14.6).
Figure 14.6 Percent of Spanish speakers who identified each category as primary source of
discrimination
Source: Adapted from Hakimzadeh and Cohn (2007)
On rare occasion, there will be public commentary which makes clear
that the offer we make to immigrants is contingent on a certain kind of
English, as in this radio broadcast (May 23, 1994) which begins with
images of confusion and bloodshed in a multiethnic urban setting:
Los Angles has cosmopolitan eyes and ears. We know a Korean
billboard from a Chinese one even though we may not read either
language. Those bloody names that spill out of the television every