A remark framed as a boundary—“I only speak American”—hits a nerve in California, where Indigenous language disparities persist despite past promises and new legislative steps in public health and education. Advocates are pushing for Native language immersion
When Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly said, “I only speak American,” during a meeting of world leaders with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, it landed as a line-drawing moment—who belongs, and who doesn’t.
But the country’s classrooms tell a different truth, one that’s older than English on this continent. Long before “American” ever meant a single language, hundreds of Native languages were spoken across this land. There isn’t one “American” language. There never has been.
For Native Americans and Alaska Natives, the languages carried more than words. They carried histories and relationships to place. They survived colonization, boarding schools and federal policies explicitly designed to erase them.
Today, when someone says, “I only speak American,” what is usually meant is English. Yet English has never defined Americanness. America’s story has always been multilingual—German newspapers once thrived in the Midwest. and Spanish predates English in large swaths of the Southwest. Native languages are the oldest languages of this land. They are not foreign. They are Indigenous.
California has at least started to acknowledge the consequences of language disparities in a parallel space. Lawmakers recently acknowledged Indigenous language disparities in public health through Senate Bill 1016, the Latino and Indigenous Disparities Reduction Act. The state will now require more detailed tracking of Latino and Mesoamerican Indigenous identities and languages in its health data systems. recognizing that Indigenous communities are often misidentified. undercounted and underserved.
Education, the argument goes, still hasn’t caught up.
That mismatch is stark when California voters approved Proposition 58 in 2016 to expand multilingual education—explicitly including Native American languages—yet that promise remains largely unrealized.
The issue isn’t that Indigenous language education can’t work. It’s that it hasn’t become the norm.
In Los Angeles, Anahuacalmecac International University Preparatory was founded as a community response to assert linguistic self-determination. The school integrates Spanish and Nahuatl into instruction across subjects alongside English. Authorized by Chief Vera Rocha of the Gabrielino-Shoshone Nation of Southern California and then by the Los Angeles Unified School District as a public charter school. it treats Indigenous languages as core languages of learning. culture and community—not optional add-ons.
Since 2012, the school has also developed Nahuatl courses that meet University of California A-G requirements—still a rare example of an Indigenous language embedded within a college preparatory pathway.
A coalition of Native educators and advocates is now drafting what they call the Native Language Revitalization and Immersion Act. a proposal that would establish a pilot Tk–12 Native language immersion school in California. The plan would be to model future schools after that pilot. offering core academic instruction in Native languages while meeting state standards and preparing students for college eligibility.
Assemblymember James Ramos is advancing new legislation—Assembly Bill 1581—to update California’s archaic and inconsistent ways for students to self-identify their tribal identities. The proposal would also formally recognize “American Indian Language learners” in the state’s accountability system and create a defined funding pathway to make these schools viable in urban. rural and tribal communities.
That push is about equity and student success, not only symbolism.
The case for immersion is framed with a familiar promise drawn from federal research and decades of educational data: students perform better when their first language is respected and integrated into instruction. Engagement increases. Persistence improves. Academic outcomes rise.
Native language immersion, the proposal insists, is not a retreat from academic rigor. It is a strategy to achieve it as defined by tribal educational self-determination.
Without comprehensive and concerted action, the language crisis described by tribal leaders and educators is urgent. Nationally, they acknowledge that by 2050, fewer than 20 Native languages may still be in use in the continental United States.
The debate often turns on a simple claim: English unifies us. But unity, in this telling, has never required erasure.
In the classroom, the argument becomes legal as well as cultural. The article points to federal law under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and asks California to align its public school systems with the trust obligation to “maintain. protect. and promote the rights and freedom of Native Americans and Alaska Natives to use. practice. maintain. and revitalize their languages. ” as envisioned in the Native American Languages Act (25 U.S.C. 2901 et seq.).
California, it says, can lead—not just in words, but structurally and in alignment with federal law upholding each tribe’s sovereign right to educational self-determination.
That’s why supporting Assemblymember Ramos’ legislation through AB 1581 is presented as a critical first step.
The Native Language Revitalization and Education Act is still a draft. It needs a legislative champion. It needs public support. It needs a broader conversation about what language justice looks like in the classroom.
But it begins with a premise meant to cut through the noise of boundary-making. Native languages are not outside of America. Indigenous Peoples from across the Americas make California their home. And like all Native children. those of Mesoamerican Native Nations also have the right to freely live. learn and dream in their mother and heritage languages.
If the state is serious about equity, belonging and educational excellence, the laws should say so. And, the writer argues, the schools should too.
Marcos Aguilar is a co-founder of Anahuacalmecac International University Preparatory of North America (www.anawakalmekak.org). an Indigenous public charter school in Los Angeles dedicated to community-based education. cultural revitalization. and environmental stewardship. For more on his advocacy efforts, go to https://tzicatl.org/.
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Native languages Native American education multilingual education California Proposition 58 Senate Bill 1016 Latino and Indigenous Disparities Reduction Act Assembly Bill 1581 Native Language Revitalization and Immersion Act language immersion schools Anahuacalmecac International University Preparatory Tk–12 University of California A-G requirements