The Chairman of the California Latino Legislative Caucus believes requiring schools to teach kids in English is a form of “linguistic tyranny” that needs to be abolished.
After the California State Senate voted in favor of a ballot initiative on Tuesday to repeal most of Proposition 227, which voters approved in 1998 and which requires students to be taught primarily in English, State Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens) said Proposition 227 ushered in a form of “linguistic tyranny, where we [politicians] decide what language our kids are going to learn.”
According to the Los Angeles Times, Lara authored the measure, SB 1174, which “was approved 27 to 8 and next goes to the Assembly for consideration.” If successful, the initiative would be put on the ballot in November of 2016.
The Latino Legislative Caucus has vowed to make overturning the ban on bilingual education and reinstituting affirmative action its top legislative priorities,even as a record number of Latinos got accepted to the University of California system. In fact, more Hispanics were accepted to the UC system than whites this year, as Breitbart California has reported.
State Sen. Jim Nielsen, who opposed the measure, told the Times that bilingual education programs could do California’s children more harm than good.
“English is the common language of this country,” he said. “It is how we do business all over the world.”
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