Posted on 12/24/2008 12:30:02 AM PST by andrew roman
From the "Buried on Page Eighty-Five of the Newspaper" file ...
Mark Krikorian at National Review.com has posted a link to a story that has probably gotten as much attention as the Oil For Food scandal, or any American victories in the War Against Islamo-fascists.
It's one of those "no no" articles that go beyond shopworn political incorrectness and actually begins to probe the dark recesses of genuine xenophobia.
At least, that's how the Left will see it.
It's not often in this day of obnoxious multiculturalism and moral equivalence that a story about the need - yes, need - to "Americanize" immigrants comes to light (faint as it may be), but Krikorian found it.
From the Cox News Service, Published in the Salt Lake Tribune, Eunice Coscoso writes:
The United States must embark on an aggressive effort to integrate immigrants, including teaching them English and U.S. history, a federal task force recommended Thursday.
If this "Americanization" fails, the nation could see major problems in 20 or 30 years, with foreign-born populations detached from the larger society and engaging in anti-social behavior, said Alfonso Aguilar, who heads the U.S. Office of Citizenship.
Aguilar compared the potential strife to what is occurring in some Western European countries where foreign-born populations do not feel part of the larger society and are not accepted by many as full citizens.
"We should not be naive and assume that the assimilation process is going to happen automatically," Aguilar said at a news conference.
The Task Force on New Americans recommends that the federal government take a leadership role in an "Americanization movement," but also says that states, local governments, nonprofit groups and the private sector should play a key part.
In a city like New York, for example, where thirty-six percent of residents are foreign-born, and government signs appear in more languages than there are bridges crossing into Manhattan, the concept of "Americanization" is seen by Leftists as a machete to the gut of what they believe is America's greatest attribute - its diversity (a buzz words that could use a little machete love of its own).
I admit to a fair degree of confusion by those who claim America's greatest virtue is its diversity. I don't understand the thinking.
The words of my dear departed grandmother still resonate with me from one of the last conversations we ever had. She said that America's greatness is measured in the fact that so many people from diverse origins come here to share in a singular value set - the American ideal.
That so many have, through the generations, willfully chosen to disown the only way of life they have ever known, often with nothing more than scant savings in hand and visions of a land rich in liberty and opportunity waiting for them, eager to start anew in a strange land, speaks to the inestimable glory of the land they are coming to - not in the one left behind.
You got it, Grandma.
Out of many, one ... indeed.
(Ask a hundred college students what E Pluribus Unum means. What's the over/under on that one?)
Coscoso continues:
The report strongly emphasizes that immigrants must learn English in order to fully integrate into American society.
Aguilar said immigrants currently want to learn English but many cannot find classes.
He said the report is not recommending "an ugly, English-only approach," but "a friendly, pro-active literary effort."
I'm not sure what an "ugly, English-only approach" means exactly. (I picture jackbooted phonics specialists shoving flash cards into the faces of tied-up third grade students screaming, "I before E, dammit!")
Can an English-only approach exist without being "ugly?"
I don't know.
I do know, however, that "assimilation" is a dirty word to multiculturalists. Images of dazed and confused, disconnected non-english speaking immigrants wandering the streets in search of breadcrumbs, warm socks and twice-smoked cigarette butts, with nowhere to go, willing to lay their heads down on rat-nibbled Twinkie wrappers plague the minds of Leftocrats.
But assimilation - or integration, as Coscoso calls it - is quite literally one of the agents by which a given society is perpetuated. (The other is procreation - something Europeans are not doing)
That success in the United States is directly tied to the ability of its citizenry to speak English in undeniable, and needs to be explicitly conveyed to immigrants as the foundation of any "integration" plan.
But it doesn't stop with the common language.
It also calls for more U.S. history and civic instruction at all levels of schooling and urges American businesses to provide English-language instruction for their employees.
Aguilar said the widespread integration effort is needed because of the unique nature of current immigrants who are mostly from Latin America, Asia and Caribbean nations and are coming in large numbers. By 2025, about 14 percent of the nation will be foreign-born, he said.
That the United States of America has - and should have - a distinct national identity seems to trouble leftists.
That the United States of America could very well decline into a nation of disparate tribes scattered across the map with little or no common thread tying its citizens together troubles me.
-
Of course, the native born need that education just as much as the immigrants.
Of course, the native born need that education just as much as the immigrants.
Believe you may be on to something here. A big part of the problem with this issue is that the vast majority of native born Americans are oblivious to history and how immigrants assimilated throughout our country's existence. It's no small wonder after being preached the gospel of diversity and multiculturalism in the public schools over the last forty years.
I never knew, until I was about 10 years old, that he spoke fluid French.
I remember once or twice him helping my brother with his high school French, and I remember he lost his grip when I swore (after checking my spelling lesson, age and grade unremembered) the teacher had spelled it on the blackboard "begginning". (I was actually trying to cover up after being discovered I had mispelled the word).
My father was so happy to be a white man in America ... It took Junior High for me to even know there was some place called Quebec, Canada.
The big problem with teaching American history at all is that there is no faster way to start an acrimonious fight. For this reason, over years, the “standard” US history textbook was utterly sterilized and sanitized.
And yet, there really is no good, regularly updated, elementary or secondary alternative history text out there, which would be an elaborate production indeed. Several key features:
1) Very multimedia. Even elementary school history would need a dozen DVDs. Because of the enormous scope of content, the courses would have to emphasize “watch and learn” instead of memorization.
2) Strikingly, because even through high school, students have a very limited perspective in both space and time, history needs to be taught backwards, starting with current events. This gives them a “bridge” to the past, and makes history far more relevant.
3) However, this has to balanced with “subject block” instruction, for the big areas of American history that have to be considered separately, such as slavery, international history and events, manifest destiny and the frontier, etc.
4) Biography of great Americans is essential. (One of the real scandals of the standard history is that it had one paragraph each to Washington and Lincoln, and eight pages dedicated to Marilyn Monroe.)
5) War must be taught. This has been a major problem for years, because many teachers abhorred teaching the subject, leading to widespread ignorance.
6) The assumption should be that students are intelligent, not stupid. So using foreign words and complex words and ideas are not to be avoided by “dumbing down” the language to 5th grade level or lower, as is the practice today.
7) Since political studies are pretty absent in most schools, history class also has to incorporate subjects like the founding documents of US history, and their supporting arguments.
8) Once US and international history in a multimedia format has been created, State and local history needs to be incorporated as well. This is perhaps the most neglected area of all.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.