The CATESOL Journal

Under critical examination, the English language and its use in daily interactions carry with them symbolic values in our social world, including social mobility, educational achievement, and employment. Its representations in government bodies, mass media, education, and legal documents have further increased those values and subtly created a hostile environment for many US immigrants who are nonnative English speakers. In the bilingual education debate, this view of nativism and monolingualism has received support from critics who believe that bilingual education serves only to disembody national unity and cohesion. As a result of the English-only view, a number of bilingual education programs are curtailed in the states of California, Arizona, and Massachusetts. In this article, I adopt the theoretical framework of equal educational opportunity (EEO) to examine bilingual education conceived by the California Education for a Global Economy Initiative. In the discussion section, I also propose a bilingual education plan that could better reflect language-positive liberalism and a participatory educational ideal.