A controversial bill to make English the official language of Iowa will be filed in the state Senate next week, and legislators said the bill sends mixed messages of racism and unity.The bill, which would require all official state documents and publications to be written in English, has not hit the Senate floor yet, but the bill’s author, Sen. Steve King, R-Kiron, already is predicting a heated debate.”The senate has been through this debate twice in the last four years, so everyone already knows about where they stand on this,” he said. “One thing that I know, this debate will devolve into name-calling.”King said his efforts to stabilize the already-standard practice of writing documents in English have been perceived by some of his Democratic colleagues as racially motivated.”When people of any race are born, all of them have equal abilities to learn any language, so it can’t have anything to do with race,” he said. “It used to be that being called a racist was an insult, but now when they start calling those kinds of names, it simply means the liberals have lost the argument.”King said he hopes the bill will be an incentive for people to learn English and better adapt to life in Iowa.”I hope that it sends a gentle message and nudge to focus a little harder to learn the language,” he said. “This will stabilize the system we have today.”Opponents of the bill already have said an official language would be a driving force to discourage non-English speaking people from settling in Iowa.”I think it’s a message of, ‘If you can’t speak English, just go home, go back to wherever you came from,'” said Sen. Johnnie Hammond, D-Ames. “I don’t like the message or the feeling that goes along with English only.”She said people who move to Iowa know instinctively they will have to have at least a basic comprehension of the English language.”I think all evidence indicates that non-English-speaking people know they have to learn English to get along here, to do their jobs, to shop, to live,” Hammond said. “We don’t need that kind of language in the code.”Dennis Peterson, director of international education services, said the bill could be perceived as unwelcoming for non-English-speaking people.”The fact is, there are some people here learning English, and having some things written in Spanish, it seems to me, would help them over those early days or months before they fully master the language,” he said. “I don’t think we will ever be at a point, even if English is not the official language, that we will have everything written in 100 languages. That’s never going to happen. But, I think we should help the people who are here helping to build Iowa by putting some of those bridging materials in their languages.”Most international ISU students, Peterson said, are relatively fluent in English.”They’ve all been tested two or three times, and they have the English ability they need to function here,” he said.King said a “blanket exception” in the bill permits any official document to be translated into any language.”It allows any government representative that is conducting any government business to use another language if they deem it is a more appropriate way of communicating,” he said.If the bill passes, it would have a limited effect on universities, King said.”I would imagine that official transcripts and things of that nature would be in English,” he said. “If you had to send something, a grade report, for example, to Somalia, it could be translated and sent, but the official copy would be in English.”Iowa would become the 27th state to declare English as its official language, King said, which should send a message to the federal government to make English the official national language.He said the English-only bill would unite rather than divide.”It just sends a message that English is a language of unity,” King said. “English is a unifying force, and it has been throughout all of history. And that is an unchallenged fact.”