The Massachusetts English Plus Coalition, which began in late 1988 as an ad hoc coalition of community groups and individuals, was organized to counter the efforts of the English-only movement to make English the official language of Massachusetts. We have since evolved into a coalition of over 50 organizations dedicated to advocating against all forms of language- based discrimination and promoting the values of our multicultural and multilingual society.
We seek to educate communities about the implications and realities of the English-only movement, which threaten the fundamental civil rights of language minorities, and to empower language minorities to more fully participate in society. Our educational program emphasis is to help language-minority communities confront the problem of racism as it is linked to language-based discrimination, while at the same time celebrating language and cultural diversity.
Our educational activities and organizing efforts are grounded in the notion that our communities must have control of their own destinies and equal access to societal resources, including education, jobs, health care, etc. Our organizing and educational efforts in the last 7 years have empowered our communities not only to advocate against English-only laws and language-based discrimination, but also to work for policy changes that would ensure equal access to societal resources and governmental services for linguistic minorities and immigrant communities.
As a response to the growing anti-immigrant movement across the country, the focus of our current activities is to increase the collective capacities of our immigrant communities to work for social change through coalition- building, collaborative education and organizing efforts.