Hyphenated Americans

The United States stands proudly as a nation of legal immigrants.

This is not a chance collection of separate peoples united merely by geography or economic opportunity. Rather, this is a nation of citizens united in our shared respect for the inviolable freedoms and rights found in our great documents.

Whatever your opinion of amnesty and "guest worker" programs, the truth is that for many Hispanics residing in the USA, the greater metaphor of America as a "melting pot" has ceced to the notion of America as mutually exclusive groups.

If many immigrants are not assimilating, part of the blame lies with America's academic and political elites. We live in an era where the Pledge of Allegiance is under attack in many schools. Several schools banned the flying of U.S. flags.

Today, multiculturalism is considered a civic virtue - in which accepting foreign traditions, values, laws and languages is put ahead of promoting immigrants' integration into our society. When Hispanics can do so much of their business in Spanish, vote in Spanish, take a driver's license exam in Spanish and send their kids to bilingual public schools, what reason do they have to learn English?