No Translation Necessary
La Raza vs. assimilation.

By Jim Boulet Jr., executive director, English First
August 29, 2001 10:00 a.m.

hat exactly may America ask of immigrants? According to a Hispanic-rights lobby press conference recently, absolutely nothing.

On August 23rd, the National Council of La Raza sponsored a press conference on the "National Hispanic Leadership Agenda." After all the speeches were made and all the questions answered, nary a word had been uttered suggesting that Hispanic immigrants, legal or illegal, had any obligations whatsoever to the United States.

The notion of expanded rights for illegal aliens, however, came up early and often, thanks to speakers for both the National Council of La Raza and the AFL-CIO's Labor Council for Latin American Workers.

Another press conference participant, Brent Wilkes, the executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), complained that some people had far too many rights in the USA:

We really resent the fact that a group like the Center for Immigration Studies would be coming out with statements trying to purport to say how Hispanics are going to behave [politically] in the future. They really have no business doing that.

Now America is a land where illegal aliens can hold press conferences and even mass rallies to demand their rights. Surely the CIS political scientists might be allowed a little freedom of speech as well?

La Raza's president, Raul Yzaguirre, even found time to complain about "political reaction from the Republican Party" to the Bush Administration's trial balloons on amnesty. The nerve of those Republicans — making a Republican president aware of their views.

The subtext of this press conference was a demonstration of Hispanic unity, a unity which does not exist among their claimed constituency. While a speaker from the National Puerto Rican Coalition can share a podium with a speaker from the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, outside the confines of the National Press Building it is generally a different story.

Tomas Hernandez, a Mexican immigrant complained to the Philadelphia Inquirer on August 19th: "up there [evidently North Philadelphia], they're mostly Puerto Ricans, Dominicans. We don't like it much."

Team Bush should realize that far fewer Americans would be upset about immigration issues if the federal government simply ceased encouraging immigrants and their children to remain in a linguistic ghetto.

President Bush could show himself to be a pro-Hispanic, pro-assimilation Republican by repealing Clinton Executive Order 13166. EO 13166 creates an enforceable legal right to receive services from any recipient of federal funds in the language of one's choice. EO 131666 not only has no basis in federal law, it is absolutely dreadful social policy. And if EO 13166 remains of the books while millions of immigrants are granted amnesty, the costs of this Clinton-era mandate will grow exponentially.

The other thing Bush might do to position himself as a pro-Hispanic, pro-assimilation Republican would be to take a strong stand against a provision of S.1, the Senate-passed Elementary and Secondary Education Act reauthorization now in conference.

Thanks to an amendment offered by Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D., Ark.) and passed by a vote of 62-34, S.1 would authorize a quadrupling of federal spending for bilingual education programs, despite the fact that bilingual education actually prevents immigrant children from learning English.

Repealing EO 13166 and insisting that Congress reject the Lincoln amendment to S.1 would send a clear message that required no translation: immigrants have a responsibility to learn English. That is a message nearly all Americans, both immigrant and native-born would be glad to hear.