Part 4: The Shameful History Behind Iowa’s English Only Policy
by Nancy Thieman, LMSW, Sioux City, Iowa
An original Blog for Iowa exclusive in four partsGovernment-sponsored Coercion Leads to Mob-mentality Violence
The fact that the State of Iowa and the U.S. Marshall officially supported the anti-German sentiment that was rabid in Iowa led citizens to take liberties with people and property that they no doubt would not have during more peaceful times. For instance, it was fairly common for German churches and businesses to be vandalized with yellow paint. In 1917, in Hamburg, Iowa, the Lutheran church had its windows broken and yellow paint thrown all over the church, both inside and out. This was said to be the mark of the “slacker,” or one who did not support the war full out.
Even on Armistice Day, the day the war officially ended at 11:00 am on November 11, 1918, the mob mentality was in full swing. One merchant in Hamburg, Iowa, was informed by a group of men that all businesses were going to close their doors at 11:00 am in honor of the armistice. The merchant said he would shut his doors at noon. The men roughed him up for not cooperating, and he fled out the back of the shop and hid out until after dark. In the meantime, a huge crowd of men gathered and waited for him to return. The street was completely blocked till nightfall until most of the men in the mob finally gave up, too hungry to wait any longer, and went home.
As the War Ends, Anti-German Sentiment Gains Ground
In many instances, it was not until the war had ended that the enforced Liberty Bond sales and the slacker courts reached the full thrust of their power. In fact, many county councils employed returned soldiers to enforce their authority and harass the German-speaking population.
A full six months after the war had ended, in April, 1919, the Iowa legislature passed a law requiring that all instruction in schools in Iowa be in the English language, legitimizing at least a portion of the Babel Proclamation. Foreign languages could only be taught in ninth grade or above, a dictate which seems to have consequences even today as most Iowa public schools do not offer foreign-language classes until ninth grade.
Modern-day Language Policy in Iowa
In 2000, former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack made a big push to bring new immigrant populations to Iowa to bolster the dwindling workforce. Ironically, almost as soon as the newcomers got here, Gov. Vilsack turned around and signed a bill into law making English the official language in Iowa. The 2002 Iowa English Language Reaffirmation Act also encouraged non-native speakers to improve their English skills and, shockingly, to assimilate into “Iowa’s rich culture” (SF 165, Section 1a, 2002). But thankfully, Iowa has come far enough that the legislature felt no pressing need to try to force assimilation by outlawing foreign language use. In fact, the law stipulates that “nothing in this section shall disparage any language other than English or discourage any person from learning or using a language other than English” (SF 165, Section 5c, 2002). That, in and of itself, is a 180 degree turn in Iowa language policy in the last 90 years.
Whether the Babel Proclamation and the 1919 Iowa law requiring all school instruction to be in English ended up having the effect that Iowa’s Gov. Harding had hoped they would have, or whether the German language died out naturally, one would no doubt be correct if one concluded the worst. It seems likely that the death of German was hurried along in Iowa by the official anti-foreign language policies, the English-only school law, and the widespread system of persecution of German speakers. In fact, researcher Nancy Derr goes so far as to say that this persecution and “the pressures it put on Iowa’s society led to the virtual obliteration of the self-confident, aggressive German-American community.”
Allen, L., (1974). Anti-German sentiment in Iowa during World War I. The Annals of Iowa, 42, 418-429.
Davidson, M.E., (1979, July/August). The homefront: Hamburg, Iowa. The Palimpsest, 60(4), 116-120.
Derr, N., (1979, July/August). The Babel Proclamation. The Palimpsest, 60(4), 98-115.
Frese, S., (2005, November). Divided by a common language: The Babel Proclamation and its influence in Iowa. The History Teacher, 39(1), 59-88.
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