Arizona – An English Monolingual State

As previously stated English language skills constitute the first step towards social mobility and thereby integration in the US (Gordon, 1967). However, the pressure for fast assimilation in Arizona seems to slow down the integration process for the Mexican immigrants, who constitute the state’s largest group of Spanish-speakers.

As illustrated in the quotation by Jeff MacSwan in section 7.5 Language Legislation in Arizona, the acquisition of English language skills is not a process which can be forced within a one year time span but is instead a long-term process, which happens proportionately with a general integration into society. Therefore, one of the most serious consequences by applying a strict assimilation approach in relation to the school system is based on the fact that children of Mexican immigrants, while

learning English, fall academically behind compared to the Native-born Americans²⁹. These findings correlate with the facts presented in chapter 6 Integration and

Linguistic Assimilation. The facts concluded that Mexican immigrants hold the lowest rate of educational attainment compared all minority groups and that the proportion of Hispanics with less than 9^th grade education is more than 6 times higher than

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born Americans³⁰. Therefore, the insertion of proposition 203, may actually contribute to a continuing academic division in Arizona, which ultimately leads to unequal opportunities between the LEP and Native-born Americans due to the fact that educational attainment promote English language acquisition. Conclusively English-Only classrooms are going to pose a barrier to educational mobility especially among Mexican immigrants.

In Arizona, children who learn English in bilingual classrooms are showing better results than their counterparts in English-Only classrooms³¹ - a trend seen throughout the country as illustrated in chapter 6 Integration and Linguistic Assimilation.

Therefore, implementing a transnational approach in the school curricular creates an open environment, where bilingualism could ease the way towards higher English proficiency among Mexican immigrants and make the process of assimilation both more flexible and successful. According to Ovando, the maintenance of the language of origin in the classrooms will in fact encourage linguistic assimilation because a cognitive process must take place in language affirming surroundings (Ovando, 2003).

As illustrated above, the implementation of proposition 103 and 203 could enhance the socioeconomic division in Arizona because without proper schooling Mexican immigrants are not likely to advance socially or economically in US society, which may also have implications for the second and future generations of Mexican immigrants. This is supported by Min Zho u, who states that assimilation may not always be an advantage for the immigrants and their children if society does not recognize the need for a slower pace of assimilation (Zhou, 1997).

By ignoring the importance of gradual assimilation, it becomes difficult for the immigrants to become part of society and eventually the immigrants may end up feeling excluded and segregated from the host society.

30 See Appendix 1

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“If a socially and linguistically defined racial minority group wishes to assimilate but finds that the normal paths of integration are blocked, then the group might be forced to take alternative survival strategies that enable them to cope psychologically with the barriers that do not necessarily encourage school success”

(Zhou, 2004) As stated earlier, Milton Gordon finds that the first step in the assimilation process takes place through cultural assimilation (Gordon, 1967). For this reason, a lack of English language skills, which are vital for feeling a sense of belonging, could become a source of discrimination. This is affirmed by the following figure which shows that 46 % of Latin American immigrants cite language as the main cause of discrimination.

Figure 9 - Top cause of discrimination among Latin Americans in the US

(Hakimzadeh and Cohn, 2007).

According to Min Zhou, if a social and linguistic ethnic minority group finds it hard to assimilate then the group might be forced to take alternative survival strategies such as excluding themselves from the main society by viewing educational success as a way of acting white (Zhou, 1997). As discussed in chapter 6 Integration and Linguistic Assimilation, this may lead to negative patterns of assimilation. The negative pattern could be caused by an academic division between Mexican immigrants living in segregated communities and the Native-born Americans as

inner-city schools lack tools to improve the rate of educational attainment among marginalized immigrant groups.

In Arizona, a negative reaction could be prevented by applying a more

transnationalist approach to the Mexican immigrants through the acknowledgement of bilingualism. This approach has, as already mentioned in section 7.7 Para Progresar Oprima el 2, been adopted by various Arizonian businesses and

institutions. These businesses reach the Spanish-speaking immigrants through the ir native linguistic frame by using Spanish as a language of instruction. This gives the Mexican immigrants the opportunity to be included in society and enables the m to actively participate in society instead of reacting against it. Due to the successful results of addressing immigrants by transnational means, it can be concluded that the procedure taken on by the legislative branch in Arizona hinders rather than promotes fast assimilation. On the contrary, acquiring English language skills must be seen as a gradual process that occurs proportionately with the general integration into

American society.