Understanding the English-Only Movement in the United States

Abstract

Arizona's recent passage of Senate Bill 1070 has reignited a national debate over illegal immigration (and immigration more generally), bringing language politics back to the fore. Over the last one-hundred years, states have intermittently introduced and passed legislation declaring English as the exclusive language of government services. However, tremendous variation in the introduction, success, and timing of such measures exists. Patterns of English-Only legislation are categorized by neither region or time period. In this paper we ask: Why have some states passed such legislation while others have not? Using an original historical dataset, we examine the effects of demographic shifts, economic indicators, past failures, and policy diffusion on the introduction and passage of English-only legislation.