Word: hayakawa
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Asians have made impressive forays into California politics. Since 1975, California's secretary of state has been March Fong Eu, a Chinese American. Two of the state's Congressmen are Norman Mineta and Robert Matsui, Japanese Americans. Another Japanese American, the noted philologist and educator S.I. Hayakawa, has served as U.S. Senator...
What happened to those glorious days of yesteryear, when California produced Red-baiting Richard Nixon, tap-dancing George Murphy, and the diminutive, tam- o'-shanter-wearing S.I. Hayakawa, who said of the Panama Canal, "We should keep it; we stole it fair and square"? Or, for that matter, the Gipper? On the liberal side, there was Jerry Brown, promoter of Zen politics and Spaceship Earth. Bill Schneider, political analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, blames Governor Moonbeam for starting the trend away from trendy. "Brown singlehandedly is responsible for the election of at least two of the most boring politicians...
...Lynne and Roy Orbison (who died in late 1988), The Traveling Wilburys, won praise. -- ARETHA FRANKLIN, the "queen of soul," won two Grammy Awards in 1988. -- MARVIN GAYE, rhythm- and-blues singer, was shot and killed by his father in an argument in 1984, on his 45th birthday. -- S.I. HAYAKAWA, former president of San Francisco State University, retired from the U.S. Senate in 1982. He is honorary chairman of U.S. English, which seeks to make English the official language of the U.S. -- ABBIE HOFFMAN, cofounder of the Youth International Party, is an environmental activist, antidrug advocate and a fixture...
These victories have made U.S. English, the group that sponsored the initiatives, a formidable political force. Founded with the guidance of linguist S.I. Hayakawa, a former U.S. Senator from California, the 350,000- member organization is seeking a constitutional amendment making English the official language of the U.S. Says Steve Workings, the group's director of government affairs: "Language is one of the very few things we have in common in the U.S." U.S. English urges a written English-proficiency test for naturalization. It also advocates an end to bilingual ballots and an increase in funds for bilingual education, though...
...passed a measure making English the "official" language. Many saw the vote as a sign of xenophobia. Larry Berg, a professor of political science at the University of Southern California, describes the vote as reflecting "no-nothing, nativist resentment toward this massive influx of people." But former Senator S.I. Hayakawa, a formidable semanticist who led the crusade, promised it was not meant to homogenize Californian life. * "If you want to host at your home a prayer meeting or a crap game in Serbo-Croatian or Greek or Swahili, there will be no linguistic gestapo to come break up your game...