This is a well-researched book with balanced shifts between detached analyses and normative arguments. Its clear prose and fine-tuned policy aims make it an easy read and an important intervention, and one can only hope that Faingold has the ears of policy makers.

Pacific Affairs

The title and back cover recommendations will certainly entice many who may be interested in this very important topic, and most readers new to this subject will not be disappointed. Overall, for new students, this is a gathering of facts and analyses available elsewhere into one very convenient volume.

Language Policy

Language Rights and the Law in the United States is a great publication on languages issues in the US about legal point of view. Dr. Faingold analyses scientifically and in a very exhaustive way the hands-off and the hands-on, the explicit and implicit, the official and non-official, the native and no-native different language legislations in the US. It is a remarkable publication written by a linguist who thinks like a lawyer.

Joseph-G. Turi, President and Secretary-General of the International Academy of Linguistic Law

The issues surrounding language rights, and the violations of language rights, have in recent years gained increasing attention in settings around the world. Language rights have also been the focus of considerable scholarly work by applied linguists and others interested in matters of language, language policy, language in education, and language planning. In the United States, the incredible complexity of questions of language rights has rarely been clearly recognized, let alone cogently analyzed. In Language Rights and the Law in the United States and its Territories, Eduardo Faingold provides an invaluable critical examination of the legal and constitutional issues surrounding language rights in the many contexts that exist in the United States: in the constitutions of the different states, in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, in the historical experiences of the US Southwest, and in Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa. This volume provides a unique treatment of an important and timely topic, and will be of interest and value to a wide variety of readers, including not only linguists, but also those with backgrounds in such diverse disciplines as education, history, international relations, law, political science, and many other areas in the social sciences.

Timothy Reagan, University of Maine

A painstakingly thorough review of cases illustrating the interplay between de facto and de jure policymaking in the United States and how these afford or deny minority speakers’ language rights. Highly unique, this book accessibly navigates detailed study of history, linguistics, legislation, and litigation in praiseworthy pursuit of providing for policymakers, politicians, and other decision-makers specific guidance on how to leverage the law for the promotion of minority language rights.

Sarah C. K. Moore, Center for Applied Linguistics

The book, the culmination of years of study of US language policies by a leading expert in language policy, provides a comprehensive overview of language policies, and policies bearing on language, in the United States and US territories. The book will serve as an important source of information for students of language policy and for policymakers everywhere.

Humphrey Tonkin, University of Hartford