The Hispanic Challenge . . . by Samuel P. Huntington ("Foreign Affairs")

[OneBlueSky]

here's twelve pages of right-wing claptrap from the pages of that esteemed journal "Foreign Affairs" . . .

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=2495

The persistent inflow of Hispanic immigrants threatens to divide the United States into two peoples, two cultures, and two languages. Unlike past immigrant groups, Mexicans and other Latinos have not assimilated into mainstream U.S. culture, forming instead their own political and linguistic enclaves—from Los Angeles to Miami—and rejecting the Anglo-Protestant values that built the American dream. The United States ignores this challenge at its peril.

(snip)

In this new era, the single most immediate and most serious challenge to America's traditional identity comes from the immense and continuing immigration from Latin America, especially from Mexico, and the fertility rates of these immigrants compared to black and white American natives. Americans like to boast of their past success in assimilating millions of immigrants into their society, culture, and politics. But Americans have tended to generalize about immigrants without distinguishing among them and have focused on the economic costs and benefits of immigration, ignoring its social and cultural consequences. As a result, they have overlooked the unique characteristics and problems posed by contemporary Hispanic immigration. The extent and nature of this immigration differ fundamentally from those of previous immigration, and the assimilation successes of the past are unlikely to be duplicated with the contemporary flood of immigrants from Latin America. This reality poses a fundamental question: Will the United States remain a country with a single national language and a core Anglo-Protestant culture? By ignoring this question, Americans acquiesce to their eventual transformation into two peoples with two cultures (Anglo and Hispanic) and two languages (English and Spanish).

- much more, unfortunately . . .

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=2495

[oneighty]

1. All I can think of is

Tough shit!

180

[Cocoa]

7. exactly

Huntington should just take some Spanish lessons, that should ease his anxiety a little.

[Noon_Blue_Apples]

2. nice

"America's traditional identity"

they actually published this garbage.

I still don't get why any member of a minority group would back Bush - cuban, jewish, any

chickens voting for the rancher

[charlie]

3. Sigh

There he goes again. Whenever "civilizations" meet, the result must be a clash. It's his one idea and he's flogging it for all it's worth.

[David__77]

4. Huntington is a racist and imperialist.

He is a major ideologue behind the current policies in the Middle East. History will not look kindly upon him.

[Malikshah]

5. Uh Oh

We've gone from the Red Peril to the Green Peril....so what color will be given to the Latin Peril?

This is not a question to elicit racial jokes, btw.

I'm sure, however, that those supporters of Huntington's viewpoints in other forums/venues will provide their own stereotypical twist.

[Maestro]

12. Many just don't understand what is happening

They equate with hearing Spanish more with less assimilation when in fact, what is a happening is simply a paradigm shift in population. More and more people will be more Hispanic in look than ever before in history in the US. This is frightening to some for some unknown reason. The fact that Spanish is seen more on billboards or heard more in public doesn't mean these people refuse to speak English or don't even know English. Research has actually shown that Hispanics assimilate quite rapidly but also tend to hold on to their culture longer because of the proximity to Spanish speaking countries to the south mainly Mexico. What's wrong with being bicultural? Nothing. But to Huntington and his ilk multi-culturalism is bad. Language has never separated peoples. What has in fact separated peoples more is religion and land rights. As I have written before, being bilingual and understanding someone in that person's native language actually brings people together.

[Bridget Burke]

6. This is new?

Actually, the article isn't exactly new, but the ideas are moldy with age. The immigrant peril will destroy all right-thinking Anglo-Saxon Protestants! Ack! Just like the Irish Catholics did in the 19th century. (They breed like rabbits, you know!)

For reasons of history & geography, Spanish will continue to be spoken in the USA, as it has been since Cabeza de Vaca was shipwrecked in Galveston, back in 1527. But the people who come here want their slice of the American dream, even if the first generation may not have time for English class.

[Maestro]

8. I fight this crap everyday!

And I will continue to do so with pleasure.

www.irvingisd.net/~spollard

http://www.irvingisd.net/~spollard/bilingual_debate.htm

http://www.irvingisd.net/~spollard/articles.htm

[Shyriath]

9. To Mr. Huntingdon: So what?

Just because America had its origins in an Anglo-Protestant culture doesn't mean it has to stay that way. This guy howls for paragraphs about how awful it is that we're losing a core culture and language, and yet never bothers to ponder that that might NOT actually be a bad thing. I won't argue that the mixing of different cultures can result in some conflicts (people are never going to agree on EVERYthing, y'know) but it seems to me that, whenever this has happened before, the mix settled down and the new culture that resulted was, if not better, than at least not definitively worse.

After all, consider England, the land from which this 'core culture' originated from. A monolith, it isn't. You have Anglo-Saxon, French, probably Norse or Danish, and maybe the odd Celtic influences in English culture (or at the very least its language, which I would expect to be an indicator of culture). Where would this 'Anglo-Protestant' nature be if not for the cultural interactions of England's history? Culture, even American culture, is no static thing, as Huntingdon would present it; it changes. It may keep some core themes, but these need be neither Anglo nor Protestant in order to be important enough to survive the centuries.

In fact, this not only undermines the assumption that culture change is bad (because, after all, it's nearly unavoidable!), but also suggests that another part of what he's saying is also wrong: that the U.S. is destined, at this rate, to be split into Hispanic and Anglo cultures. This might be so if a culture were a discrete, definite solid object; but it isn't, and does not behave like one, either. Wherever you find two cultures sitting side by side, it is only a matter of time before contact between the two starts causing some blending... and it surely has, already. Perhaps as a Mid-Atlantic sort I can misinterpret what goes on in other regions of the U.S., but I have visited the Southwest before, and it certainly LOOKS like it's happening. Surely, if it goes on long enough, distinctions between one culture and another will become more and more blurry.

Even language need not be a huge factor; adult immigrants may not pick up English so easily, but their children, raised in a country where it is the dominant language, has less of a problem. I have, for example, a good friend in California who is of Mexican descent; her father's parents speak mostly Spanish, but her father also speaks English fluently (with an accent, but usually not enough to result in miscommunication), and she herself speaks English as well as I do (one might argue that she does it better; I seem to have picked up a fair bit of local, less-sophisticated speech). Language barriers, in this context, are more of a generational factor than anything else.

And, as one last point, I wish to say the following:

My home state of Maryland was, as some may know, was founded as a place where Catholics, persecuted in England, could live without being hounded. In light of this, I feel compelled to point out that the idea that the 'Protestant' part of Huntingdon's 'Anglo-Protestant' culture is not nearly so integral as he seems to think.

So take THAT, Huntingdon, ya rat bastard.

[Maestro]

10. Excellent reply! -nt

[Maestro]

19. One other thing that I forgot to mention

You mention that he is wrong when he states that he sees a US divided into Anglo and Hispanic cultures. You are right. He is wrong but ironically, what he really wants are Hispanics that look and act more like himself, protestant, dress like he does, and of course speak only impeccable English. Forget about hanging on to anything Hispanic, except for maybe the stereotypical crap. He is the one that wants to drive the wedge between the cultures, not the Hispanics and more open minded Anglos like myself. Or should I call me myself Anglo-Irish-Scottish-French-German protestant? Whatever, time to go learn Gaelic just to piss him off.

[Maestro]

11. Here is what a friend of mine wrote

in response to this bovine excrement.

Permission to post has been granted...

Sent to Foreign Policy, March 26

Samuel Huntington ("The Hispanic challenge,"
March/April, 2004) claims that bilingual education
programs in the US now authorize cultural maintenance,
and, "as a result, children are slow to join
mainstream classes" (p. 38). False. Nearly all
bilingual education programs in the United States are
transitional, their goal being rapid acquisition of
English. Also, despite the negative press it has
received, bilingual education, whether transitional or
maintenance, has been very successful in helping
children acquire English. Studies show that English
learners in bilingual programs acquire at least as
much English as similar children do in all-English
immersion programs, and generally acquire more.

Huntington also claims that "Spanish-language
advocates" are actively trying to change the US into a
bilingual society. I am an active member of state and
national bilingual education associations in the US:
Any movement toward making the US bilingual is
imperceptible. Our goal is to help all children become
literate in English: We have discovered ways of using
the first language in ways that help children acquire
English more quickly and do better in school. This is
the primary goal.

It is also highly desirable to promote and develop the
primary language: Research confirms that those who
develop their "heritage language" show superior
cognitive development, have increased job
opportunities, and benefit more from the wisdom of
their heritage culture. There is no movement, however,
to force monolingual English speakers in the US to
become bilingual. Those "Hispanic leaders" that
Huntington quotes who claim "English is not enough"
represent an extremist view.

Stephen Krashen, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus
Rossier School of Education
University of Southern California

[The Backlash Cometh]

13. "and rejecting the Anglo-Protestant values that built the American dream"

<snarf> <snarf> Shouldn't that read, "And rejecting the Anglo-Protestant way of life that was built on the backs of black slaves before the Civil War, the orientals when the railroads were built, the graves of the American Indians, and, lately, the hispanics?

Guess what, the only one who is reveling in the Anglo-Protestant way of life, is Anglo-Protestants. Thank GOD the rest of us don't believe that being an American is that limiting.

[Maestro]

14. Well I'm pretty Anglo

But I do not buy the built on Anglo-Protestant values crap. Heck, this country almost spoke German instead of English at one point. Yes, the majority of the "founding fathers" were protestant, if not all of the them but many, many, many cultures including the Spanish, French, Dutch, Asian, Indian, etc...have formed this country. I just don't understand why some refuse to see this. It's not really a melting pot but a mosaic.

[The Backlash Cometh]

15. Yes, and a powerful mosaic, at that.

Shame people can't feel the power and creativity that comes from diversity.

[Maestro]

16. Yeah

I've been attacked within the halls of my own school for speaking Spanish to my kids. It's pathetic. Luckily I've won my battles at my school and district and we have pretty much alienated the Huntington types in my district and definitely at my school. They are not welcomed.

[charlie]

17. Hah! Good on you

Huntington is willfully blind to the likes of you and me. My missus is Mexican-American. Which makes my son half Mexican, one-quarter English/Scottish/Irish, and one-quarter Japanese, a Rainbow Coalition PartyPak. My wife is fluent in Spanish, my son, Japanese. I'm the goob in the middle with a tenuous grasp on English. And we're all standard-issue dumbass Americans. No CLASHBOOMCRASH of civilizations in my household.

Gads, it seems every reactionary throwback in our nation's history, from No-nothings to McCarthyites, has been resurrected to plague us.

[Maestro]

18. My kids are also half Mexican so I take particular offense

to this Huntington

He nees a good whipping from a good American.