The reason? The SAC administration has ruled that all non-English languages, such as Spanish and Persian, are prohibited on campus.

“This is an English-speaking institution,” [Earl] Wright [associate dean for student affairs] told the paper. “The educational program is in English, and all other functions of the college rely upon the English language.”

Could any bilingual materials be distributed? Wright answered, “The only reason I could see for approving such a piece of literature is if it would lose some of its cultural impact in the English translation. But if it does not lose that impact then it should be written (only) in English.”

Yet Spanish is the first language of more than half SAC’s student body. The majority of the 21,000 students are Chicano.

The ban on languages goes back to SAC’s attempts last year to control the activities of its several hundred Iranian students. Last year, the campus administration ruled that Iranian students could not form their own organization or distribute any literature in Persian.  
 
December 7, 1953
American labor has already had considerable experience with fascist movements. Back in the Thirties, when the CIO was born in struggle against the despotic corporations, the Mohawk Valley Formula for breaking unions was introduced. A systematic campaign of terror plus propaganda was launched against the worker on strike.

Every agency was used. Shopkeepers, vigilante gangs, police, militia, and private company armies were launched into action around a red-baiting campaign. All these forces were moved in a concerted murderous attack against the workers.

The Mohawk Valley Formula was quite effective. It cost the workers many lives. But the revolt of the production slaves was too powerful. The CIO won and the corporation had to retreat.

In the late Thirties, fascist organizations like Father Coughlin’s “Social Justice” group and Pelley’s Silver Shirts came into prominence.

After World War II, American fascist activities took a spurt forward around the racist demagogue Gerald L. K. Smith.

Smith’s plan was to head up a post-war fascist movement and use the returning veterans against labor. But this sinister project was decisively smashed by the massive strike wave of 1946 which found the veterans on the picket lines everywhere.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home