Language Rights and the Law in the United States: Finding Our Voices

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Multilingual Matters, Jan 1, 2003 - Language Arts & Disciplines - 357 pages
A comprehensive review of the legal status of minority languages in the USA. It also provides the historical and political context for the legal manoeuvring that culminated in landmark civil rights victories. All of the major cases in the USA concerning language rights are discussed in detail and in a manner that should be easily accessible to the non-legal audience. The topics range from the English-only movement to consumer law, and from employment discrimination to international law.

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Contents

Between Tolerance and Hostility
9
The Fourteenth Amendment and its Importance to Language Rights Claims
23
Language Rights During the World War Eras
30
Echoes of the Past at the End
54
Conclusion
79
English Literacy Naturalization
88
The Tenuous Voting Rights of Language Minority Citizens
97
Conclusion
111
Negotiating Boundaries Within
117
Bilingual Education Fights for Survival
247
Recommendations
261
The US Implements an EnglishOnly
275
The Particular Case of Language Repression
287
Conclusion
293
Copyright

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About the author (2003)

Sandra Del Valle is a civil rights lawyer born and raised in New York City of Puerto Ricon parents. She has worked on language rights issues in the U.S. for over ten years. She specializies in the educational rights of language minority children. She lives on Long Island with her husband and two daughters.

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