A Brief History of Bilingual Education in the United States

INTRODUCTION In the history of the United States of America, multilingual communities have subsisted side by side. Among the many languages spoken throughout the country, we could mention first all the original Native American languages and then a multitude of languages that immigrants from all over the world have brought into the country. Together with English, Italian, German, Dutch, Polish, French, Spanish, Chinese, and Japanese are just some of the more than two hundred languages that have been spoken in the United States. As James Crawford (2004) has noted, “Language diversity in North America has ebbed and flowed, reaching its lowest level in the mid-20th century. But it has existed in every era, since long before the United States constituted itself as a nation” (p. 59). Such a phenomenon is partly a result of the fact that immigration is one of the authenticities in the history of the United States of America. Immigration is one of the most prominent features of the country, together with the promise of liberty and a better life, which led this nation to be labelled a nation of immigrants. As Sonia Nieto (1992) asserts, contrary to many contemporary arguments about immigration,