






































Policy and Perspectives 

Shuang Fu, PhD Candidate, Department of Language and Literacy Education, University of Georgia. 
Email: shuangfu@uga.edu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5788-7034) 

Tracing the History: Language 
Education Policy and Emergent 
Bilingual Learners in the United 
States

GATESOL Journal 2024, 
Vol. 33(1), pp. 18-27 

doi:10.52242/gatesol.176 
ISSN: 2331-6845

Shuang Fu 
PhD Candidate, Department of Language and Literacy Education, University of Georgia 

Abstract 
Since the passage of the 1968 Bilingual Education Act, the meaning, function, and connotation 
of bilingual education in the United States have undergone significant changes. In this article, 
the author outlines the evolution of U.S. language education policies for emergent bilingual 
learners since the 19th century. In particular, the article demonstrates the major waves and 
shifts of language education policies that either support or oppress the linguistic rights of 
language minoritized students, and captures how the changing social, political, and economic 
climate has shaped the nation’s response to language diversity. Importantly, reviewing the 
historical evolution of language policies not only echoes the importance of policy decisions 
in impacting bilingual students’ educational trajectories, but also informs future policy 
decisions in order to disrupt deficit positioning of bilingual communities. 

Keywords 
Emergent bilingual learners; language education policy; policy evolution 

Introduction 
On January 2, 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Bilingual Education Act 
(BEA), Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. In doing so, he said:  

The bill contains a special provision establishing bilingual education programs for children 
whose first language is not English. Thousands of children of Latin descent, young Indians 
and others will get a better start—a better chance in school.... [W]e are now giving every 
child in America a better chance to touch his outermost limits—to reach the farthest edge 
of his talents and his dreams. We have begun a campaign to unlock the full potential of 
every boy and girl—regardless of his race or his region or his father’s income. (Johnson, 
1968, as cited in Anderson & Boyer, 1970, p.1) 

What Johnson said demonstrates the establishment of bilingual programs as a political vision, a 
form of educational and social reconstruction, and a site that is crucial for serious democratic 
transformations. The implementation of bilingual education was initially to address social, 
political, economic, and educational injustice, but it has remained a powerful instrument of 
mainstreaming language minoritized students (Akkari,1998). Indeed, even though BEA was laying 
out the ground for ensuring equitable educational rights for children whose first language is not 
English, the term and stance of “bilingual” did little to explicitly support its goal. Scholars have 
argued that bilingual education needs to be built on the beliefs and practices that foster and sustain 
linguistic and cultural pluralism and embrace cultural and linguistic pluralism as part of the 

mailto:shuangfu@uga.edu
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5788-7034


19 GATESOL Journal 33(1) 

democratic project of schooling (Harman, 2018; Paris, 2012). Yet, as I reflect on the history of 
bilingual education and language policymaking in the U.S., I realize the fact that Johnson’s lofty 
goals of providing equitable educational opportunities to racially and socioeconomically 
minoritized groups and creating pathways to social justice through bilingual programs, after more 
than five decades, have not been achieved. In this vein, for anyone who has been working in the 
field and trying to make the connections between education for emergent bilingual learners and 
the broader sociopolitical landscape, understanding the history of these connections ought to 
remain a central focus in academic inquiry. Because only when we ensure that the historical 
progress of language policies is well documented, can we leverage the role of bilingual education 
in future endeavors for upholding the rights of emergent bilingual learners.    

Since the passage of BEA in 1968, the meaning, function, and connotation of bilingual 
education have undergone significant changes. In this article, I attempt to provide an historical 
review of the evolution of U.S. language education policies for emergent bilingual learners starting 
from the 19th century, when contemporary bilingual education programs emerged. In the sections 
that follow, I first describe the demographics of emergent bilingual learners in the context of U.S. 
K–12 educational programs. I then identify language education policies implemented over the 
decades that have affected the educational opportunities and resources available to emergent 
bilingual learners. I further introduce the dual language education (DLE) model. By doing so, what 
I try to suggest is that while different language education policies impact the schooling experiences 
of emergent bilinguals in different ways, what these policies did not address are the racial, 
linguistic, and socioeconomic hierarchies between emergent bilinguals and white monolingual 
communities (Fu, 2021; Harklau & Ford, 2022; Thompson, 2017). The subtractive schooling for 
bilingual students in the U.S. reflects a symbolic politics that relegates Latinx and other 
minoritized communities to second-class status in society (Valenzuela, 2010). In other words, 
policies are subject to power relations in the broader society and can be used as a mechanism to 
maintain social dominance of some over others (Wagenaar, 2011). 

Nevertheless, what I want to demonstrate in this article is that critically reviewing the 
evolution of language education policy can be a powerful apparatus. The holistic understanding of 
language education policies can not only help us make links between the past, present, and future, 
but also allows us to see the policy’s textual meaning, rhetorical meaning, and social meaning 
when implemented under certain contexts. Just as Anyon (2005) reminded us, “As in any attempt 
to resolve complex issues, workable solutions can only be generated by an understanding of 
underlying causes” (p. 66). Given that the U.S. schooling system has long remained a hegemonic 
structure to perpetuate racial hierarchies and reinforce English monolingualism, Anyon’s quote 
amplifies the need for us as teachers and teacher educators to keep a reflective gaze and advance 
our understandings of the interplay between power, politics, and policy. 

Understanding Language Education Models in the United States 
In the U.S., it is estimated that English language learners  made up 10.1% of the K-12 public school 
student population, representing more than 5 million school-aged children (National Center for 
Education Statistics, 2021). Among this group, two-thirds of them speak Spanish as their primary 
language, with the next most commonly reported languages being Arabic, Chinese, Vietnamese, 
Somali, Russian, Portuguese, Haitian, and Hmong. While language diversity in the U.S. has ebbed 
and flowed, the diversity of language has existed in every era throughout U.S. history (Crawford, 
2004). 



Fu 20 

Within the U.S. public educational system, there are six main programs implemented for 
working with English learners, including submersion or so-called “sink or swim” program, ESL 
pull out, structured immersion, transitional bilingual education (early exit), developmental or 
maintenance bilingual education (late exit), and two-way bilingual education (García, 2011). 
These programs range from the ones that expect students to learn English by simply exposing them 
to mainstream English classrooms (i.e., submersion), or providing a portion of ESL service during 
regular class periods (i.e., ESL pull-out), to those that aim to support bilingual learners’ content 
and language learning through both L1 and L2 (i.e., transitional bilingual education, 
developmental bilingual education, two-way bilingual education). Specifically, in transitional 
programs, teachers only focus on helping students acquire English as quickly as possible, while in 
developmental and two-way bilingual models, teachers use students’ home language and English 
to support their bilingual proficiency and construct knowledge in both languages (de Jong et al., 
2023). Following other scholars (e.g., Brooks, 2015; García & Lin, 2017; Gebhard & Harman, 
2011; Menken, 2008), this paper will demonstrate that bilingual education in the U.S. has been 
primarily focused on developing English proficiency rather than the development of bilingualism 
and biliteracy– despite the label “bilingual” (Gándara & Escamilla, 2017). The ironic reality is that 
bilingual education in the U.S. is actually for the purpose of teaching English and not about 
educating students in two languages (Gándara & Contreras, 2009). For students who are classified 
as English learners in K-12 schools, access to inclusive practices in bilingual education has been 
deeply lacking (Menken & Solorza, 2014). 

With regard to the issue of how to name students who are dominant in a language other 
than English, a series of terms have been used by educational and policy officials. These terms 
have included “Non-English Proficient”, “Limited English proficient”, and “English language 
learner” or “English learner”. In particular, state or local educational authorities prefer to use the 
term “English language learner” or “English learner” as protected labels to denote students’ 
language learning needs and their eligibility for special funds and instructions (Torres-Guzmán et 
al., 2005). However, these terms are problematic because, as Wiley (2001) notes, they “attempt to 
apply a single label to a complex situation” (p. 29). In this regard, scholars have criticized that the 
ELL/EL label devalues other languages while intentionally putting English in “a sole position of 
legitimacy” (García & Kleifgen, 2017, p. 4). Furthermore, it places the focus of language 
development solely on the part referring to “academic English” while ignoring other aspects of 
students’ language development (García & Kleifgen, 2017). For these reasons, I adopt the term 
emergent bilingual  (García, 2009) in this article to recognize the value of students’ home language, 
acknowledge students’ social bilingualism positively, and highlight their emerging capacity of 
becoming fully bilingual. It is such a lens that informs my read of language education policies in 
ways that place bilingualism, biliteracy, and students’ language rights at the center. 

History of Educational Policies in the United States for Emergent Bilinguals 
In the following sections, I seek to outline the evolution of education language policies for 
emergent bilinguals in the United States since the 19th century. In particular, I attempt to capture 
how changing social, political, and economic forces have shaped the nation’s response to language 
diversity (Ricento, 1998). Indeed, as I follow the timeline to trace the changes in language 
education policy from the 19th century through the early 21st century, it has become obvious that 
the beliefs, models, and views on the effectiveness of bilingual education in general have 
undergone much evolution according to the changing historical events (Crawford, 1999; Kim et 



21 GATESOL Journal 33(1) 

al., 2015; Wiley, 2002). In sum, the aim is to assess the evolution made in language education 
policy with respect to emergent bilingual learners and to see where we might go from here. 

Late 19th Century-1960s 
Until the end of the nineteenth century, bilingual education was widely authorized in a number of 
states. Locally operated bilingual education was provided throughout the United States in many 
non-English languages, including French, Norwegian, Italian, Swedish, Danish, Dutch, German, 
and Spanish (Kloss, 1977/1998). Although, during this period, immigrant groups managed to 
maintain their heritage language while participating in the civic life of the new nation, it is 
important to note that bilingual education in the 19th century was not intentionally for the 
promotion of bilingualism. Rather, many localities provided bilingual instruction without state 
sanction, and “a policy of linguistic assimilation without coercion” seemed to prevail (Ovando, 
2003, p. 4). With the new wave of immigrants from Europe in the early twentieth century, the 
Americanization movement came into being as many native-born residents perceived the mass 
immigrants as a threat to society (Blanton, 2004). By educating foreigners in English and 
conveying “American values” in schools, the Americanization movement eventually became 
characterized by cultural and linguistic assimilation, political loyalty, as well as construction of 
national identity (Behdad, 2005). During the Americanization era, the use of languages other than 
English were prohibited by harsh restrictive language policies and bilingual programs were quickly 
replaced by English-only instructions.  

The xenophobia of World War I caused the United States to push for monolingualism and 
curtail bilingual programs (Ramsey, 2010). In particular, German as a foreign language was 
eliminated in most schools and English-only instruction started proliferating during the post-World 
War I period. From the 1920–1960s, English immersion, or “sink or swim” policies became 
dominant methods of instruction for language minority children (Hakuta, 1986). For linguistically-
minoritized students, there were few or no remedial services provided, and education was 
restrictedly dominated by monolingualism (Baker & Jones, 1998). Behind the “sink or swim” 
approach is the belief that language minority students themselves should be the ones responsible 
to assimilate into the U.S. society. Language policies, during this period, served as a practical tool 
to tame the conquered groups’ ideological principles, destroy minority cultures, and help the nation 
maintain colonial domination (Crawford, 1992).  

1960s-1980s 
With the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and the 1964 Civil Rights Act, bilingual education 
advocates started engaging in transformative practices to acknowledge the plight of language 
minoritized students and endeavor to nurture linguistic diversities. The passage of Bilingual 
Education Act (BEA) (1968), Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, indicated 
a major shift of establishing and funding bilingual programs for emergent bilingual students. 
Specifically, the amendment provided financial assistance to local educational agencies and 
attempted to meet the special needs of students with “Limited English Proficiency” (LEP). 
However, the aim of BEA was ambiguous and controversial. Following the guidance of BEA, it 
was unclear whether the purpose of the Act was to help children become literate in two languages 
or to transition them into English at the earliest moment as possible (Crawford, 2004). As Crawford 
(2000) writes, “the Bilingual Education Act of 1968 passed Congress without a single voice raised 
in dissent. [But] Americans have spent the past 30 years debating what it was meant to accomplish” 
(p. 107). Despite the ambiguity of the law, BEA marked a significant step in moving away from 



Fu 22 

the “sink-or-swim” approach and provided the initial foundation for ensuring the legislative 
credibility of supporting students in bilingual instruction. 

The next landmark in the evolution of language education policy for emergent bilinguals 
was the 1974 Supreme Court case Lau v. Nichols (414 U.S. 5637). In this Supreme Court case, 
approximately 1,800 non-English-speaking Chinese students alleged discrimination grounded on 
the lack of supplemental English classes in the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD). 
Consequently, basing the unanimous decision on the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Court ruled public 
schools receiving federal funds must provide linguistically-minoritized students with supplemental 
language instructions to ensure their rights of receiving equal education. The Lau verdict had an 
enormous impact on the development of bilingual education in the U.S. and further led to the 
passage of the Equal Educational Opportunities Act in August 1974. With this Act, Congress 
affirmed the Lau decision and expanded its jurisdiction to apply to all public school districts, not 
just those receiving federal financial assistance (Teitelbaum & Hiller, 1977). 

1980s-2002 
After the previous 20-year period of opportunity, however, bilingual education was challenged 
and attacked by a new political perspective in the 1980s, which no longer cherished minority 
communities’ ethnic culture. For example, in 1981, newly elected President Reagan amplified his 
political standing with the following statement:  

It is absolutely wrong and against American concepts to have a bilingual education 
program that is now openly, admittedly dedicated to preserving their native language and 
never getting them adequate in English so they can go out into the job market and 
participate. (R. Reagan, public speech, March 3rd, 1981) 

Building on Reagan’s political agenda, by 1988 English-only programs were allowed to receive as 
much as 25% of Title I part A school program grants - a significant increase from four percent 
adopted in 1984. The increase in funds for English-only programs reflected the political strategies 
that intentionally eliminated languages other than English from the educational system. 

At the state level, a clear consequence of language prejudice is reflected in the passage of 
Proposition 227 in California (1998), also known as the “English for Children” initiative. The 
endorsement of Proposition 227 in California came close to placing emergent bilingual students 
back onto the “sink-or-swim” approach. That is, students can now only receive a maximum one-
year instruction in their home language before being placed in mainstream English classrooms 
(García & Curry-Rodríguez, 2000). Following the passage of Proposition 227, similar legislation 
was passed in Arizona (Proposition 203) in 2000 and Massachusetts (Question 2) in 2002. Simply 
put, these initiatives represent a trend of the modern English-only movement across the states that 
threw bilingual programs into turmoil. 

2002-2015 
After the passage of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in 2002, bilingualism as a resource and tool in 
the education of emergent bilinguals has been increasingly marginalized (Crawford, 2004). That 
is, under NCLB, education was envisioned as an activity that measures students’ success solely 
based on performance on English-only high-stakes tests (Menken, 2008). As part of this process, 
the term bilingual, which Crawford (2004) has called “the B-word”, was systematically been 
erased from the legislation and from the names of official bureaus and laws. García (2009) 



23 GATESOL Journal 33(1) 

documented how the progressive elimination of the term bilingual was represented at the federal 
level (see Figure 1). In short, the erasure of “the B-word” implies an intentional disarticulation of 
issues surrounding bilingualism. 

Figure 1.  
Elimination of the Term “Bilingual” from the Names of Official Bureaus and Laws 

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was reauthorized by President 
Barack Obama in 2015, as Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Under ESSA, states are required 
to hold schools accountable for the progress of English learners towards language proficiency and 
academic progress.  While ESSA continues the goals of NCLB of ensuring high standards and 
accountability, it lessens federal oversight over education and decentralizes accountability 
decisions to state and local levels. By providing state and local education agencies the autonomy 
to establish standards and report on students’ progress, ESSA brought an era in which emergent 
bilinguals’ schooling experiences vary across states and are deeply associated with state immigrant 
policy contexts (Callahan et al., 2020). That means, emergent bilingual learners can end up being 
served with very different programs depending on state and local policies. In this sense, the 
diversity in approaches to educating bilingual learners are across different states offers valuable 
insights into the political discourse within specific contexts (Welton et al., 2023). 

Contemporary Dilemmas in Bilingual Education in the U.S. 
In recent years, the profile and demographics of English learners have changed tremendously. 
While emergent bilingual learners may typically be portrayed as students who recently arrived in 
the U.S. and primarily speak a language other than English, recent studies show that the majority 
of students identified as English learners (ELs) were born in the U.S. and likely have been exposed 
to English before entering school (Johnson, 2023). In response, the model of dual language 
education (DLE) or two-way immersion started to make inroads recently. Students in DLE 
programs are typically described as a combination of emergent bilingual learners and students who 
speak English as their primary language. The involvement of both groups of students signals a 
growing awareness of equity and language rights and offers an alternative to the pervasive English-
only stance (de Jong et al., 2020). Instead of solely focusing on the English proficiency of emergent 
bilingual learners, the goals of DLE programs gear towards “developing bilingual skills, academic 
excellence, and positive cross-cultural and personal competency attitudes for both groups of 
students” (Lindholm-Leary, 2001, p. 30).  



Fu 24 

Despite the laudable goal, it is crucial to be aware of the power dynamics in the DLE 
classrooms. Specifically, DLE programs separate English and the partner language during class to 
provide uninterrupted instructions in each language. However, such strict language separation in 
DLE programs inadvertently overlooks the fluid bilingualism of many emergent bilingual learners 
and forces students to be categorized as speakers of either English or the other (paired language), 
thus causing language minoritized students to be alienated (de Jong, 2016; Howard et al., 2007). 
At the same time, DLE makes bilingual education a product whose consumers are not necessarily 
emergent bilingual learners (Petrovic, 2005). In this way, emergent bilingual learners’ home-
language proficiency becomes a commodity that is desired by white middle-class parents (Palmer, 
2010) and for the profit of white middle-class children (Flores & Garcia, 2017). 

Discussion and Conclusion 
In this article, I reviewed the evolution of language education policy in the U.S. from the late 
nineteenth century until the early 2020s. The brief look at the historical profiles of policies in the 
field provides evidence of the continuing need for developing more equitable bilingual education 
programs as well as indicating the demand for more informed policymakers, well-prepared 
teachers, and critical researchers. As we have observed, language education policies have seen 
major waves and shifts in the value and models that either support or oppress the linguistic rights 
of language minoritized students. The lack of coherence on policy for emergent bilingual learners 
rests upon the complicated relations lying between politics, language, education and society. Thus, 
it is important to understand not just what language ideologies and value discourse are presently 
embedded in language education policies, but also how the ideologies and discourses have come 
to domination and for what reasons.  

For example, on a positive note, it is within the context of the Civil Rights movement that 
bilingual education emerged, as part of a broader effort to dismantle white supremacy and instill 
cultural pride in Latinx and other minoritized communities (Flores & García, 2017). The massive 
policy shifts toward standardized testing and accountability in the 21st century reflect neoliberal 
consideration of the language skills of individuals and the nation; the recent movement leaning 
towards DLE programs represents a free-market interpretation of bilingual education that result in 
it being more accessed by privileged groups than language minoritized communities. Briefly, the 
programs, forms, and policies of language education for emergent bilingual learners in motion in 
the U.S., are not absolute and isolated changes but rather a correspondence of complex, enduring 
and evolving elements in relation to governance (Ball, 2016).     

Overall, this review contributes to the contemporary field of language education policy 
related to ESOL programs in two ways. First, through tracing the evolution of U.S. language 
education policies as it pertains to K-12 emergent bilingual learners, this review enables us to have 
a more complex understanding of the relationship between politics, policy, and education. Second, 
situated in the ramped up xenophobic rhetoric and the recent anti-immigration socio-political 
context, this review provides critical implications for ESOL teachers and educators to engage in 
the dense policy work and create liberating and healing spaces for (im)migrant bilingual students. 
For critical teachers and educators who are committed to advocating for students’ language rights, 
it is crucial to connect flows of politics, power, and language policy to acknowledge the value of 
students’ home language, amplify the fluid bilingualism of bilingual students, revive a sense of 
agency, and fight for students’ linguistic rights and educational equity (Bacon, 2020; Fu & Aubain, 
2023). 



25 GATESOL Journal 33(1) 

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____________________________________________________________________________ 

Received: August 3, 2022 | Accepted: February 16, 2024 | Published: May 24, 2024 

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cgf/english-learners

	Tracing the History: Language Education Policy and Emergent Bilingual Learners in the United States
	GATESOL Journal2024, Vol. 33(1), pp. 15-24 
	doi:10.52242/gatesol.176
	ISSN: 2331-6845

