Chavez: English for Immigrants

Linda Chavez

Townhall - President Obama invoked immigrant assimilation this week in a speech in El Paso, Texas, praising the notion embodied in the motto E pluribus unum: out of many, one. But it wasn't all that long ago when many liberals eschewed the idea of America as having one language, one culture, and one people. Ironically, it has taken an anti-immigrant backlash to awaken at least some liberals to the dangers of multiculturalism, which they pushed aggressively for decades. It was liberals -- not conservatives -- who originally claimed that today's immigrants couldn't assimilate, or, in their view, shouldn't even try. Liberals insisted that Hispanic kids, even those who were born here, be taught in Spanish and learn to revere their ancestral culture rather than to take pride in being Americans. The bilingual, multicultural approach became deeply imbedded in the public school curriculum, thanks to the efforts mostly of white liberals, with help from some college-educated, fully assimilated Hispanic activists. Read full column here: News New Mexico

Chavez: English for Immigrants