This article attempts to draw on the legal, policy, and educational experience that we have gained over the past 25-30 years to suggest directions for the future. It is uniquely timed, as we seem to have reached a period of retrenchment after a period of extensive activity. Ultimately, we have to move beyond the present and build on this past experience, or we will be sorry as a society. This article also assumes that bilingual education or native-language instruction must be a significant part of the response to the needs of English learners. It thus explores the historical evolution of bilingual education and the perceived cause of the backlash. It offers thoughts about how to respond to the antibilingual forces in a way that allows bilingual programming to grow in a positive way, freed of some of the baggage that has historically weighed it down. (Contains 21 footnotes.)