The True Aim of Multiculturalism---the End of American Culture
Deroy Murdock covers the latest outrage---ballots in Farsi:
Any guesses as to how few of these Farsi monolinguists would pull the lever for the GOP?
Or why Republicans would continue to allow Democrats to drum up non-American votes?
This bizarre outrage highlights a bigger problem: What will America do with the millions of immigrants — illegal and otherwise — who pour in across the veritable open field that is our southern frontier and through the international airports that replaced Ellis Island? Whether this parade should be accelerated, slowed, or stopped, America’s immigrants should be Americanized.
As this English-Spanish-Farsi ballot vividly demonstrates, American officials and elites expect so little of immigrants that voting, studying, and even publishing official documents in foreign tongues all are increasingly routine. As this multicultural “gorgeous mosaic” has replaced the traditional melting pot, it has fueled many Americans’ immigration-related anxieties.
GOP presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani said last month that he wants to see “Americanization as part of immigration.” Once our dangerously unguarded boarders are tightened — through low-tech fencing to high-tech surveillance tools — how should America handle immigrants who already are here?
America should renew its commitment to English in civic life. Speaking other languages at home and in cultural festivals like Cinco de Mayo and Chinese New Year adds color and variety to the American scene. But if we cannot communicate among ourselves in the town square, a self-imposed, Balkanesque bedlam will engulf this land.
Consequently, bilingual ballots should vanish. Immigrants are supposed to understand English before being naturalized. So why are those who are supposedly fluent in English voting in other idioms? Farsi ballots suggest that American candidates should campaign in Farsi. If American immigrants from Iran don’t speak English, how will they follow the ongoing presidential race? Must Hillary Clinton or John McCain start stumping in Persian?
Any guesses as to how few of these Farsi monolinguists would pull the lever for the GOP?
Or why Republicans would continue to allow Democrats to drum up non-American votes?
Labels: Immigration
posted by Teflon at 7:02 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Teflon, as much as I'm a stalwart-hearted Republican and conservative on most issues, this "language nationalism" stuff is just stupid and it's losing us votes. It's the sort of thing the French would fret about.
I'm from California myself and of course I use English in most of my transactions, but Spanish has a very long history here, far longer than English has. It's established here, period, and it's something we have to know to do business. I'm not happy about it in all respects, but it's what the market has more or less selected. And indeed, in large parts of this state as well as in other very competitive swing states-- like Arizona, New Mexico and Florida-- Spanish has a very long history and it's never going away.
What bothers me is that many Latinos intrinsically lean toward the GOP in these critical states. They like the social conservatism and discipline of the Republican Party, and they especially like the GOP's stance toward unfettering business, personal responsibility and encouraging individual initiative. At least a large segment of the Latino population wants to embrace us. But this anti-Spanish rhetoric really pisses a lot of them off. It's one thing if you take that stance in a very American state like South Carolina, which has never had a Latino presence. It's quite another if Latinos have been established in the state for centuries before Anglo-American settlement began.
All I'm saying is, if we want to win elections in the future, it would behoove us to drop the English-only plank. It's only costing us votes and utterly killing us in a demographic that's otherwise inclined in our direction. Especially in Florida and the Southwestern states.
I could not disagree more strongly, Brandon.
I lived in southern California for 3 years and was struck by the ghettoization of it, even in conservative Orange County.
I am a third-generation American. My great-grandfather spoke only Portuguese when he came over, and had to learn English sufficiently to gain employment. My grandfather learned to speak both English and Portuguese fluently. My father spoke a little Portuguese but spoke English like the native he was. I speak no Portuguese whatsoever.
Of interest here is the progression in education and profession through these generations. My great grandfather and grandfather didn't finish high school. My father did. I am a college graduate. They were bricklayers.
Assimilation brings true rewards and opens options otherwise unattainable by immigrant families.
The Republican Party stands for meritocracy and Americanism. Abandoning our historic allegiance to the founding principles of this nation by encouraging the creation of immigrant ghettos such as now exist in California will drive away far more voters than it will bring in. This is the fundamental flaw with the current party leadership, who believe they can add just enough voters by pandering to ensure governing majorities. As 2006 demonstrated, it doesn't work that way, particularly when your opponents are the professional panderers of the Democrat Party.
Let me ask you this---if Latinos embrace of conservative principles are so tenuous that they are utterly repelled by conservatives' call to learn the language that will open the full opportunity America represents to them and their descendants, why should we whore our platform out for their sake?
Put another way, Latinos are considered to be strongly pro-life. What does it say about their devotion to this principle that they vote overwhelmingly for pro-abortion Democrats because they dislike Republicans' tepid insistence on English and legal immigration?
And why are Latinos somehow excluded from the obligations to assimilate and to immigrate legally we place upon all other foreigners who come to this country's shores?
California's mess is of its own making, and should not drive national policy. It is electoral suicide for the GOP to engage in a pandering competition with Democrats who will quite literally buy Latino votes from the public treasury if need be. Moreover, the perpetual ghettoization of Latinos serves only Democrat interests; Republicans (and Americans as a whole) are better served by encouraging immigrants to participate fully as Americans, which means speaking English and subscribing to quintessentially American values of hard work, education, and traditional morality.
Given that Latinos are culturally sympatico with the first and last of these, one would hope that they would follow the examples of Asian immigrants in the second.
Removing the plank would only ensure virtual helot status for our Latino brothers and sisters within a technologically-advanced society they cannot comprehend much of the time thanks to their La Raza fantasies.
As a nascent Catholic, I hope the GOP sticks to its guns and that Latinos wake up and see the poison pill Democrats are only too happy to serve them. I thank God that my great-grandfather made the right choice in 1904.
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