As just one example, I don't recall demands for ballots, schooling, signs, and government documents to be in Chinese or Eastern European back then.

Naturally not. Immigrants lived in their own communities, with signs in their own languages and translators who would provide translations of government and other legal documents as a business. The quality of such translations would vary, but the customers were in no position to know good from bad, because they didn't know how to read English.

The schools were not necessarily teaching in English in such communities, but people didn't need to know the language if they were living in a place where most of the merchants spoke the language of the immigrant.

Children who attended schools where English was taught were the first to learn, and other children exposed to the language as part of their employment experience learned as well. They became the translators for their families. They were also most likely to become naturalized citizens.

To have ballots and government documents provided in languages other than English only makes sense: it provides a uniform translation of appropriate quality and prevents fraud by third party translators. It still doesn't address the problem of illiteracy in the native language, but that's what non-English education is for. It's much easier to teach someone to read and write English if that person can read and write in their first language. Speaking English is picked up on the side in such cases.

Yes, we have a requirement for naturalized citizens to be able to read, write and converse simply in English. That doesn't mean that person can necessarily understand the Proposition concerning irrigation projects, judicial terms of office, education funding, or redistricting that appears at the top of the ballot. Our naturalization laws also waive the English requirement for people who have lived in the US as legal residents for at least 15 years and are 55 or older. If they haven't learned English in 15 years at that advanced age and still meet all the other citizenship requirements, they are not penalized for it. Neither are people with documented neurological conditions that prevent them from learning how to read and write properly. Rather than provide these legal citizens with authorized individual translators -- can you imagine the bill for that service? -- they are given ballots in languages they can understand. They are not disenfranchised.

I know people whose first language is English who can't read it well enough to understand the Propositions, either. Perhaps they should be provided with a reading machine. My Library has one, donated by the Lions Club along with two magnifying readers that can vary contrast and color, for the blind and legally blind to use to read unique or personal documents. It's most often used by people who have poor reading skills and by dyslexic people, an unintended but completely appropriate use.

Immigrants didn't used to ask for the things on your list because no one realized their value, government agencies included. If one seeks to assimiliate immigrants, one doesn't require them to stay in their neighborhoods merely because of a language gap. Allow them to move into English speaking neighborhoods by making them less dependent on available translators, and they will learn English more quickly.

And seriously, would you rather have a legal, registered US citizen and voter go to the polls and vote on a Proposition he or she understands, whatever language it was in, or someone who walked in and just voted at random because the words made no sense? Enough people do the latter as it is.