Assimilation, Not Amnesty
Treat Hispanics like Americans.

By Jim Boulet Jr., executive director, English First
August 21, 2001 9:40 a.m.

ush 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.