ProEnglish was established by white nationalist John Tanton in 1994. The group is dedicated to accomplishing one of the key goals of the anti-immigrant movement: pushing states and the nation as a whole to declare English as their official language. Without any practical need for an official language, this goal instead seeks to restrict access to public life and provides an opportunity for anti-immigrant fear mongering.
About
- John Tanton founded the predecessor of ProEnglish, an organization called U.S. English, in the early 1980s and began working at the state level to advocate for English-only legislation. Tanton was able to recruit high-profile figures for U.S. English’s board such as Walter Cronkite and Linda Chavez. However, during a legislative battle for English-only legislation in Arizona in 1988, a series of racist memos penned by Tanton came to light. The memos included questions like, “Will the present majority peaceably hand over its political power to a group that is simply more fertile?,” “Will Latin American migrants bring with them the tradition of the mordida (bribe), the lack of involvement in public affairs, etc.?,” and “Will Blacks be able to improve (or even maintain) their position in the face of the Latin onslaught?” These memos prompted Cronkite and Chavez to resign from the board. Tanton was forced to leave the organization as a result of the memos, and he formed English Language Advocates in 1994. It was later renamed ProEnglish.
- Though ProEnglish is technically a project of Tanton’s U.S., Inc., it has its own board and staff and raises its own money. ProEnglish and U.S., Inc. have shared a number of staff and board members through the years including Tanton himself and K.C. McAlpin, the current head of U.S., Inc., who sits on the board of ProEnglish.
- ProEnglish’s efforts at the state level have had mixed results, but the group has been successful in some states. In 2009, for example, ProEnglish was instrumental in an effort to pass an official English referendum in the state of Oklahoma. Rep. Randy Terrill, a longtime ally of the anti-immigrant movement, praised ProEnglish for providing legal and grassroots support for the referendum, writing, “I can’t tell you how important it was to have ProEnglish and its legal team available whenever I needed help throughout our legislative session.”
- For over a decade, ProEnglish has actively endorsed the “English Language Unity Act,” a piece of legislation that would make English the official language in the United States. The Act has been introduced in some form or another since 2005 and ProEnglish gives periodic updates each legislative session praising those who have signed on. In 2018, ProEnglish held a legislative briefing with Iowa Rep. Steve King to promote the English Language Unity Act.
- In 2016, ProEnglish awarded Rep. Steve Scalise with its Unity Award. A year later, officials from ProEnglish met with Scalise to discuss the recruitment of co-sponsors for the “English Language Unity Act.”
- In the later 2000s and into the 2010s, ProEnglish’s influence dwindled and the organization is currently down to only two full-time staff members. Since 2010, only West Virginia has passed official English legislation.
- ProEnglish also targets legislation at the municipal level, helping Frederick County (MD) to pass an English-only measure in 2012, only for it to be overturned a few years later.
- ProEnglish’s fortunes have changed with the election of Donald Trump. Despite its small stature compared to other DC-based anti-immigrant groups, ProEnglish has enjoyed multiple visits to the White House to talk with Trump staffers about official English issues. In total, ProEnglish Executive Director Stephen Guschov and Director of Government Relations Dan Carter have met with Trump or Vice President Pence staffers six times, according to a ProEnglish release on July 11, 2019. After one such meeting, ProEnglish claimed VP Pence is, “a loyal and strong supporter” of official English legislation.
Anti-immigrant Views
- Throughout its history, ProEnglish has hired both staff and board members with extensive ties to extremists and white nationalists, starting with its founder, John Tanton. Tanton was the founding chairman of ProEnglish and remained on the board until a few years ago. In 1993, he wrote, “I’ve come to the point of view that for European-American society and culture to persist requires a European-American majority, and a clear one at that.”
- For a number of years, ProEnglish’s executive director was Robert Vandervoort. Vandervoort formerly helped to organize the Chicagoland Friends of American Renaissance, an affiliated chapter of the white nationalist American Renaissance, founded by Jared Taylor, one of the most influential white nationalists of the past quarter century.
- Under Vandervoort’s leadership, ProEnglish organized a panel at the 2012 CPAC conference, one of the largest annual right-wing gatherings. ProEnglish invited white nationalist and founder of VDARE, Peter Brimelow, to speak on the panel titled, “The Failure of Multiculturalism.” Another panelist was John Derbyshire, a friend of Brimelow’s who was fired from his position at National Review a few months later for penning a racist screed in the form of a white parent talking to his children about African Americans. One of the lines read, “If planning a trip to a beach or amusement park at some date, find out whether it is likely to be swamped with blacks on that date.”
- Former executive director and current board member K.C. McAlpin is another ProEnglish figure with a sordid history. In 2011, McAlpin defended a ban on Muslim immigration to America, writing, “Congress has used that power in the past to ban the immigration of Communist Party and National Socialist (Nazi) party members who were deemed to be threats to our national security. This case is no different.”
- In 2007, McAlpin spoke at the Dr. Samuel Francis Memorial Forum of the National Capitol Region chapter of the white supremacist group Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), according to the CCC tabloid the Citizens Informer. The mass shooter who was convicted of murdering nine people at a Charleston AME church in 2015 cited the CCC as his gateway into white nationalism.
- Current ProEnglish board member Phil Kent once defended Council of Conservative Citizens in a piece published in the Council’s publication, the Citizens Informer. In 2010, Kent wrote, “Unless there is a moratorium on legal immigration coupled with stepped-up enforcement efforts to significantly curb illegal immigration, then this country will be radically transformed demographically. It will be highlighted by more and more gang atrocities like that at Richmond High which, by the way, rarely occurred in the United States before ‘multiculturalism’ and ‘open borders’ became liberalism’s dominant dogmas.”
Anti-immigrant Activity
- ProEnglish is a staunch opponent of Puerto Rican statehood. Former ProEnglish executive director and current board member K.C. McAlpin called a bill that would pave the way for statehood a “deadly threat to English’s role as the unifying language of the United States” in a 2009 newsletter.
- ProEnglish also pushed states to provide certain state-issued documents in English only. ProEnglish is a big proponent of states only offering drivers license tests in English. In a 2005 piece, K.C. McAlpin wrote, “In state after state they are caving into pressure from “immigrants rights” groups to make driver’s license exams and manuals available not only in Spanish but in many other foreign languages. The predictable result — growing carnage on our roads and highways.”
- ProEnglish figures repeatedly use the anti-immigrant trope about the “Balkanization” of the United States when arguing for English-only measures. Balkanization has a very negative connotation due to the Balkan conflict in the 1990s that resulted in the breakup of former Yugoslavia. Anti-immigrant groups argue that diversity, be it in language, race, or religion, could result in ethnic conflict within the United States. In a piece titled, “Why English Should Be the Official Language of the United States?,” K.C. McAlpin discussed the “linguistic Balkanization of the country.”
- ProEnglish has also sought to eradicate bilingual education in the United States, arguing, “Segregation by language and ethnicity does not lead to higher academic performance, does not raise students’ self-esteem, results in social isolation and may contribute to high drop-out rates.” Longtime ProEnglish board chair Rosalie Porter is a major opponent of bilingual education and has fought against it in her home state of Massachusetts.
- ProEnglish is vehemently opposed to multilingual ballots for voters, often citing the costs of printing ballots in languages other than English. After the 2010 census results were published, the Census Bureau published a list of locales where multilingual ballots were required for the 2012 election. In response, ProEnglish issued an angry press release with then-executive director K.C. McAlpin stating, “There is no justification for this absurd, arbitrary and budget busting provision, especially since it means that every municipality within a covered jurisdiction must provide multilingual election materials— even if everyone there speaks English.”