We are very pleased to present you with this special issue of BEIS/TED’s Bilingual Basics. Under the overarching theme of “Laws, policies, and decisions affecting immigrants, undocumented workers, non-native speakers of majority languages and native users of sign languages nation- and worldwide. A new restrictionism?” our call for manuscripts sought to gather articles on ongoing language-related issues in different parts of the world.

The three articles and the book review selected for publication offer a diverse blend of perspectives on the aforementioned topic. Leong describes Singapore’s bilingual education policy as well as the debate on how the presence of English in the country is displacing the teaching of students’ mother tongues in Singapore schools, and the effects of this situation on the Chinese-speaking community. Wink offers a powerful story of discrimination against a Mexican teacher in the United States, analogizing current and past patterns of immigration to the “veins of turquoise” to illustrate the borderless nature of immigration throughout time. Ates, Petrón, and Berg explore the attitudes of native speakers of English toward ESL instructors who are nonnative speakers of the language and highlight the negative reactions of native English speakers toward the English-accented speech of nonnative instructors. Finally, Taylor’s review of a recent book by Adelman-Reyes and Crawford describes the daily operations of a successful dual-language program in Chicago, and how its constructivist approach and emphasis on students’ development of bilingualism and biliteracy contributed to students’ future success and the continuous presence of Spanish in their professional lives.

We would be remiss not to extend a heartfelt thank you to each of the authors for their submissions and to the reviewers for their time and helpful comments. It is our sincere hope that our readers enjoy this special issue of BEIS/TED’s Bilingual Basics as much as we enjoyed putting it together.