U.S. English
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- This article is about the political organization, U.S. English. For the dialect of English spoken in the United States, see American English.
U.S. English, Inc. is an American political advocacy group founded in 1983 by Senator S. I. Hayakawa and Dr. John Tanton to advocate the adoption of the English language as the official language of the United States of America.
To date, the United States federal government has recognized no official language, even though nearly all federal, state and local government business is conducted in English. Some states and territories do have English as an official language; a few have passed laws embracing another language alongside English, such as Hawaiian in the state of Hawai'i. In total, 27 states have English as their official language. The U.S. House of Representatives passed English as the official language in 1996, but the Senate did not act on the measure before the conclusion of the 104th Congress.
In the view of U.S. English's members, making English the official language of the U.S. would mean that all government business must be conducted in English, "with commonsense exceptions" of necessity, for example the dissemination of public-health information to non-English speaking immigrant communities.
Opponents of the goals of the U.S. English organization or of English as the official language object that the practice would express a bias against immigrants who have not yet learned English. U.S. English suggests that the practice would instead encourage immigrants to learn English more quickly, and thereby reap greater economic and political benefits. Thus, in the view of many supporters of this approach—including members of other English-only advocacy groups—the move to make English the only official language can have benefits for non-English speakers, and is not merely a form of legalized discrimination.
Walter Cronkite was once a board member of the organization, while Linda Chavez was once executive director. Both resigned following the leak of a memo from John Tanton that referred to Latinos in a derogatory manner, which Cronkite called "embarrassing".[1] California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is still a board member.