Editorial: Watch your language

Sunday, June 18, 2006 | 7:41 a.m.

As political and cultural tugs of war continue over immigration policies, measures to establish English as the government's official language are being floated in Congress or scrutinized anew in states that already have them.

Last month the U.S. Senate approved an English-as-official-language measure, despite criticism from such opponents as Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, who called the measure "racist" and "directed at people who speak Spanish." The House has not yet voted on such a proposal.

Last week Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman pulled the plug on his state's Spanish-language Web site, saying his legal staff had to determine whether it violated Utah's 2000 law establishing English as the official language. Nevada has no such law, but 23 states do, some of which date as far back as 1923.

Although not new, such measures do, as Reid suggested, seem to be increasingly aimed at Hispanic residents. Utah's law is six years old, but Huntsman closed down the Spanish site in the wake of the criticism that erupted after a visit by Mexico's president, Vicente Fox.

It is important to preserve English as our nation's common language, but laws creating an official language in the United States are a knee-jerk reaction that are unnecessarily divisive. U.S. Census figures show that 82 percent of Americans speak only English. No other language comes close to competing. And most, if not all, of official-language laws include exclusions for communications regarding public safety, government notices and judicial proceedings - typically the only communications that agencies translate anyway.

It is difficult to discern the purpose that English-only measures serve. But it is not difficult to see that they divide communities by making some residents - many of whom struggle to learn one of the globe's most difficult languages - feel as though they are second-class citizens.

Cultural exclusion is not an American value, and neither Congress nor any other government entity should promote it.