America's languages: The future of language advocacy

Abstract In honor of the 50th Anniversary of Foreign Language Annals , and recognizing the seminal role this journal has in informing the language education profession about policies and programs, we sketch a future for advocacy for language education in the United States. Drawing on the Languages for All initiative and the work of the Commission on Language Learning of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, we reprise a vision for building a multilingual society presented 3 decades ago for Australia, another English‐dominant society, where every child can master English, every child has the opportunity to learn the language spoken at home, all children can learn other languages if they choose, and language services continue to be provided to all who need them. We propose advocating for this vision on the basis of the impact of bilingualism and education and employment, on recent promising developments in language education, and on the rising demand among the stakeholders in the public and private sectors to meet domestic and global needs.