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English-Only Language: Not More People Of Newer Generations

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Even though we live in a melting pot of culture, the United States proves to be a country whose views tend to lean towards being monolinguistic or English-only. Through my survey I hope to observe whether or not more people of newer generations are more open to a multilinguistic society than earlier generations were where English-only was a much larger part of their identity.
The idea behind English-only is of one “official” language, a superior language, to be used as a commonality. The expected positive outcome for that being a more efficient way to communicate. However, the ideology and active pursuit for English assimilation comes from Xenophobia.(Xenophobia, 2017) The United State’s distrust of those that are foreign or unknown, this being other cultures, their beliefs, and their languages. In short, if one does not speak English they are alienated for either not conforming or being proficient (Other face of racism, 2012) The English movement is an example of how those in authority still viewed an English-only system as being the most beneficial. In 1989 when the addition of an English language …show more content…

In a U.S. census from 2009, the number of people who spoke more than one language was shown to be 57.1 million. This indicated that the number has grown, actually, more than doubled since 1980 when there were 23.1 million multilingual citizens.(Language Projections, 2011) Then in 2011 results indicated that 230,947,071 out of 291,524,091- ages five or older, or 79.2 percent of people spoke only english. That leaves 60,577,020 or 20.7 percent of the population that could speak more than one language.(Language Use, 2013) That is a difference upwards of three million; more so than before, showing that while English is still the dominant language, others are still increasing in number. Most specifically, in the newest generations, Generation X and the

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