ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the United States has a long history of multilingual translations, which were legislated and published by state and local governments in the nineteenth century in an effort to include immigrants more fully into the politics of the nation. Using a database of state laws, this chapter examines the categories of translations legislated over the century from 1830 to 1930 as the United States expanded in territory and welcomed immigrants to aid the expansion. State-supported translations usually supported European languages, especially German, for the translation of specific documents. In the Southwest, a more robust government sponsorship of Spanish-language translations led to decades of bilingual governance in former Mexican territories.
