Letter: Looking back on ‘anti-alien’ hysteria

Monday, Dec. 24, 2007 | 6:55 a.m.

The Esmeralda County School District's recent edict to promote "English-only" language on school buses seems to be one way to protect bus drivers from being cursed at in a foreign language. Of course in some school districts, banning English to curb "language abuse" may be a good idea as well.

As a grad student at UNLV in the '70s, I researched the effects of "anti-alien" hysteria after World War I when the Nevada Legislature enacted laws to promote "Americanism" in our state.

As I noted in 1979 when I wrote my master's thesis in history, laws were passed in 1919 prohibiting the instruction of German or other languages in Nevada's elementary schools and banning the employment of noncitizens on public works.

Interracial marriages were outlawed as well as illegal cohabitation and boxing matches between whites and members of "colored" races. The state's newspaper editors encouraged the "exodus" of Austrian, Italian, Greek and Asian immigrants, even though it created a severe shortage of farmhands and other workers throughout the state.

In 1921 the Nevada Legislature passed a constitutional amendment, later approved by Nevada voters, prohibiting Japanese from owning or leasing land in the state. Bills "to prohibit aliens from carrying or possessing firearms" and outlawing all foreign employment by the state were introduced.

Nevada politicians continued in their efforts to instill patriotism and conformity in all citizens by enacting laws "to promote Americanism in the schools," require the teaching of "thrift" and ordering the American flag flown over schools and on Mother's Day. In 1923 the Nevada Legislature passed measures barring strikes by nonresidents and mandated the teaching of the federal and state constitutions in all Nevada schools.

It seems to me that "civil disobedience" and "speaking in tongues" is what is called for on Esmeralda County school buses.

Ted DeCorte, Henderson