The consequences of non-assimilation
A January 30, 2013 FoxNews.com article dramatically illustrates how multiculturalism is alive and well in Colorado: School Recites Pledge in Arabic, One Nation Under Allah?
Tom Lopez, the principal at Rocky Mountain High School in Fort Collins, told Fox News he has received a number of telephone calls and emails from outraged parents – but he stands by his decision.
“These students love this country,” he said. “They were not being un-American in trying to do this. They believed they were accentuating the meaning of the words as spoken regularly in English.”
The school recites the Pledge of Allegiance once a week and on Monday a member of the Cultural Arms Club led the student body in the Arabic version of the pledge.
The club seeks to “destroy the barriers, embrace the cultures” that exist within the high school... Last year, the group found itself in a firestorm of controversy after reciting the pledge in Spanish...
But some residents say they feel strongly that the Pledge should be recited in English.
“As a veteran and a friend of a man killed defending these children in their little games they like to play with our pledge, I’m offended,” wrote Chris Wells on the Daily Coloradoan. “There are things that we don’t mess with – among them are the pledge and our anthem.”
“If they wish to adapt the country as their own, then they need to learn the language and start speaking it as their first language,” wrote another reader.
So the battle continues - for the hearts and minds of our youth, and perhaps for the very soul of America.
It's certainly not very popular these days to teach American history in substantial depth, nor teach it in a way that does not denigrate the principles upon which which our country were founded. Ask any high school student to describe the 12 amendments contained in the Bill of Rights and you'll see what I mean. (I know - there are only 10; that's the point.)
That's markedly different from how it was even as far back as the time of the Civil War. America was then a vast open frontier which was populated by settlers, many of whom were immigrants. As is the case with many Americans, my great, great, great ancestors immigrated here in waves from foreign countries, never to return. They knew that English was the language of their new country and that they must master it, even at home, in order to succeed.
Today we take in a million legal immigrants each year - more than all other countries on earth. On top of that, 20 million to 40 million illegal aliens have evaded capture and are living in America. That's a huge fraction of our massive 300 million population.
Congress, while myopically serving short-term political interests, has allowed people to migrate here in numbers too large to assimilate. As a consequence of this lack of assimilation, it has become trendy to emphasize diversity and multiculturalism, as if that was the objective all along. Perhaps it was, in which case one must ask whose interests were being served.
We can see where it is taking us, and it most certainly is not toward a cohesive nation based on the principle of E Plurbis Unim.
Theodore Roosevelt once said that "There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism," and that "The one absolute certain way to bring this nation to ruin... would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities."
We may indeed endure living in such a muddle. Unless we regain control of our immigration numbers, we're about to see Roosevelt's monition proven right.