How Great is Santa Clara County?

This month Suite 101 is hosting "How Great Is America?" Sponsor Greg Cruey, Appalachia editor, defines his event as "a chance to assess how the USA is doing, both at home and on the world stage." As my contribution, I'll investigate how well one American community is meeting its linguistic obligations, as indicated by evidence online, and how it compares to national norms.

As lab rat, I've chosen Santa Clara County, California. This community, seat of the American computer industry, is perhaps the most "online" metropolitan area on earth. Also called Silicon Valley, it has a reputation as a "white bread" community, as opposed to major cities which are considered "minority" turf in American politics. Regardless of accuracy (and as we shall see, the characterisation is in fact demonstrably inaccurate), both perceptions influence attitudes toward linguistic diversity.

Last year, California adopted Proposition 227, banning bilingual education. Typical heavy-handed American suppression of inconvenient freedoms, Prop 227's actual effects are hard to gauge online. For example, in 1996, Alum Rock schools fielded an ambitious bilingual programme that taught English to Spanish-speakers and vice-versa. The page hasn't changed since, leaving us to wonder if nothing has changed, or, conversely, the programme folded so fast that no staff were left to revise it. Aside from the fact that Silicon Valley bilingual programmes are now incorrectly referred to as "two-way immersion," little news of Prop 227's actual effect is available online. Nevertheless, it's clearly the blackest mark in the community's "liabilities" column.

Meanwhile, upscale Willow Glen has taken a dramatic leap into the present by requiring 20 language units of all students. Previously, graduation required 20 units of "culture," defined as fine arts as well as (or instead of) language. Such shell games are ubiquitous in American education. Willow Glen's decision, stunning for an American public school, rockets it to the top of the "assets" column.

Silicon Valley is considerably above the national median in other respects as well. A directory of local physicians notes member fluency in a whopping 34 languages, including Amharic, Hebrew, and three Chinese dialects. Local Red Cross literature is available in 18 languages, including five Southeast Asian tongues. However, the Silicon Valley Worksite Health Promotion directory reveals a pernicious pothole in the road to responsible policy. Though 6 of its 46 offices offer services in three or more non-English languages, only 18 offer any fluent language skills at all. Thus, lip service aside, communication skills are clearly not a hiring priority.

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