A prolific painter of portraits before and after the French Revolution ...

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explaining:
the writing process
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nic conflicts” (U.S. English 1). This is, of course, a controversial position because
many other people believe that immigrants have plenty of incentive
to learn English on their own, and those people have history to cite as evidence.
On the other side of the English-only debate, James Fallows, a Washington
editor of Atlantic magazine and author of “Viva Bilingualism,” believes
that there are enough incentives for immigrants to learn English
without adding pressure to the situation. Fallows, an English-speaking
American who lived in Japan, feels that his experiences show that Englishonly
laws are unnecessary. When living in Japan, a country that “makes
many more accommodations to the English language than America does
to Spanish,” Fallows found that he, as well as most English-speaking people,
needed to learn Japanese to participate in society (262). In America, Fallows
thinks the incentives for immigrants to learn English are greater. The
only way to get a white-collar job or to attend college, according to Fallows,
is to learn English. As Fallows puts it, in America, you can’t take the SATs
in Spanish or even watch David Letterman (262).
Writers such as James Fallows who do not support an English-only
policy do not believe that the differences in language will cause chaos. However,
some believe that an official English-only policy will actually separate
Americans. James Crawford, author of Hold Your Tongue: Bilingualism and
the Politics of English Only, argues that English-only laws are racist and
xenophobic. Crawford quotes Raul Yazguierre, President of the National
Council of La Raza, as saying, “U.S. English is to Hispanics as the Ku Klux
Klan is to blacks” (1). Crawford says that this is the consensus among Latino
leaders. Crawford goes on to say that Latino leaders believe English only
is a xenophobic, intolerant act (1). When Spanish leaders are saying that
English only is similar to something extreme like the KKK, something has
to be wrong. That Latino leaders link English only to the KKK, coupled
with the fact that immigrants have always learned English on their own,
seems to be compelling evidence that many people think English-only laws
are unnecessary and possibly destructive.
If there is any middle ground in this debate, I find it difficult to explain.
Often, arguments on both sides seem to come down to personal
experiences. Rodriguez thinks his experiences show that there should be
the pressure of English-only laws; Fallows’s experiences in Japan persuade
him that there are already sufficient pressures to encourage immigrants
to learn English. Hayakawa does point to real problems in countries
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