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Administration officials interested in immigration and language
policy would do well to ponder Jay Nordlinger's August 10th Impromtu.
Nordlinger
wrote of Li
Shaomin, whose Communist Chinese captors seized his passport
and told him: "This will do you no good. You may have an American
passport, but you're not a real American, and never will be."
This is the
same message — "you're not a real American and never will be"
— that the professional ethnic activists have persuaded the American
government to send to all of our Hispanic citizens.
Thanks to federal
and state language policies, families with Spanish names are treated
as though they were illiterate in the English language. They receive
letters from schools and government agencies in their "native"
Spanish — even if their family has been in America for generations.
Bilingual-education
programs say to Hispanic parents: "your children aren't real
Americans and never will be." Bilingual education ensures Hispanic
children will grow up to be second-class citizens because such programs
keep Hispanic children from learning English when they are young
and can do so most easily.
Even the Washington
Post editorial page confessed on August 9th: "the bilingual
education offered in most parts of the country does not promote
English fluency . . . it seems likely that students would learn
more English if they were immersed in it."
Last year,
the Clinton administration chose to require every recipient of federal
funds to effectively tell every Hispanic, "you're not a real
American and never will be."
Thanks to
regulations
issued under Executive Order 13166, when National Review Online
Executive Editor Kathryn Jean Lopez visits a government agency,
she can expect to be greeted in Spanish and gingerly asked if she
is able to understand English, simply because of her last name:
[T]he Division
will respond to the complainant in the appropriate language other
than English where Division officials have a reason to believe
that the complainant is an LEP person.
Even though
EO 13166 was a product of the Clinton administration, to date Team
Bush has shown zero interest in repealing it.
The Bush administration's
gingerly approach to assimilation matters is on a collision course
with its seeming eagerness to achieve amnesty for large numbers
of illegal aliens. On August 9th, Secretary of State Colin Powell
and Attorney General John Ashcroft met with Mexican officials to
lay the groundwork for a possible mass amnesty program.
The problem
with any amnesty for illegal aliens was identified by NRO editor
Jonah
Goldberg:
If we could
guarantee the permanent abolition of pretty much everything associated
with the welfare state and multiculturalism — including welfare,
affirmative action, quotas, set-asides, bilingual education, self-esteem
training, various state-sponsored ethnic pride months, and all
the academic "centers" for the study of Indian Marxist
Lesbians who hate white folks but love Paris — I would actually
sign on with the Wall Street Journal's "open borders"
position.
Interestingly,
the Wall Street Journal carried a page-one story on August
7th on conflicts in New York City between more established Puerto
Rican immigrants and Mexican newcomers. Father Lawrence Quinn, the
pastor of Our Lady of Mercy Church, told the Journal: "The
Puerto Ricans and the Dominicans have their own parties. There's
strong resentment against Mexicans."
The Journal
also noted that "the nation's Hispanic communities are not
a cohesive unit. Often, they are united by little more than Spanish
and a Census Bureau definition." Herein lies a hint to Team
Bush.
Outreach to
Hispanic voters should not be determined by reading press releases
from the National Council of La Raza or meeting with officials for
LULAC. Hispanics are not an undifferentiated mass awaiting instructions
from their self-appointed leaders in Washington. There are a good
many Hispanics who proudly salute the Stars and Stripes rather than
the flag of Mexico. These people will repay Republican outreach
efforts with their votes — if the GOP simply treats them just like
other Americans.
While the continued
existence of "Hispanic rights" groups like La Raza and
LULAC depends on convincing Hispanics that they will never be real
Americans, the Bush administration should not follow their lead.
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