Hayakawa

Hayakawa, one of Proposition 38’s co-authors, was preparing for Proposition 63, which would enshrine English as the state’s official language, after Whittier-area Assemblymember Frank Hill introduced a bill proposing just that.

We were Hayakawa’s Babelish prediction personified.

Tanton and Hayakawa’s consultants told them that their campaign had “the stink of rank nativism,” HoSang said, but if “you can come to California and figure out how to mask that,” they could go nationwide, which they eventually did.

Our growing embrace of English — one part classroom instruction but mostly marathon Saturday morning cartoon sessions for the kids and Charles Bronson movies for my parents — wasn’t the only thing Hayakawa and his crew were wrong about.

The official argument for Proposition 63, co-signed by Hayakawa, proclaimed that the state was moving toward “language rivalries and ethnic distrust” and that declaring English as the official language would help residents “respect other people, other cultures, with sympathy and understanding.”