A Call for a Linguistic Revolution

Dr. Denise Minor,
Faculty
International Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Department

In this presentation, Dr. Minor makes the case for declaring Spanish as a co-official language alongside English in California. Depending on the source, demographers now maintain that between 39% and 41% of California’s population is Latino. Linguists say that about 85% of Latinos speak English at least proficiently, and educational statistics show that tens of thousands of Californians have learned Spanish as a second language. How can this co-official language proposal work? Dr. Minor uses the French-English bilingualism of Quebec as an example, as well as the Hawaiian-English agreement in Hawaii.

Recorded: October 17, 2017