The People’s Tongue: Americans and the English Language

In this sweeping anthology, Stavans (How Yiddish Changed America and How America Changed Yiddish), publisher of Restless Books, brings together texts that trace the development of American identity and vernacular. Through rich and rewarding selections—which span 1581–2022 and include the writings of founding fathers, the poems of Whitman and Cummings, the lyrics of Bob Dylan and Kendrick Lamar, and the tweets of Donald Trump—Stavans chronicles how “English became American.” Highlighting the linguistic diversity of the U.S., Stavans includes pieces from Isaac Bashevis Singer on why he wrote in Yiddish, Mexican American memoirist Richard Rodriguez on his ambivalent feelings about having to learn “classroom English” as a child, and novelist Chang-Rae Lee on his mother’s sense of alienation as a Korean immigrant learning English while living in New Jersey. Works by lawmakers illuminate the legislative episodes that shaped English’s role in American life, such as John Adams’s 1780 proposal for a U.S. equivalent to the Academie Francaise in Paris, and California senator Samuel Ichiye Hayakawa’s 1982 floor speech defending his unsuccessful legislative amendment to make English the country’s official language. The shrewdly selected offerings capture the kaleidoscopic variety of American English and attest to its power in shaping national identity. The result is a trenchant look at a nation perpetually in the process of making itself. (Jan.)