The American Crucible

There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We can have room for but one flag, the American flag....We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns out people as Americans, of American nationality, and not dwellers in a polyglot boarding house, and we have room for but one sole loyalty, and that loyalty is to the American people."

Who said that? If you were to answer Pat Buchanan, Ron Paul, or Tom Tancredo, you would be wrong. The author of those words was the 26th president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, shortly before his death. And his words ring just as clearly today--maybe more so--than they did in 1919.

We've let the intelligentsia take this ethnic pride thing too far and equate it with nationality. I have nothing against ethic pride. As the grandson of immigrants I am extremely proud of my forebears and and my ethnicity. But have no doubts: I am an American first, last and everything in between. That's the way my grandparents would have wanted it. My mother and her siblings speaking Italian in public as kids earned a sharp slap from my immigrant grandfather. In 1943 my father's younger brother died when his plane crashed into the North Sea after an aborted bombing run on Germany.

Today most Americans don't even know the proper way to handle or treat the American flag, let alone fly it. Some adults don't even know the words to the Pledge of Allegiance. Youngsters have been taught in school that all countries are good, that nationality is a relative thing. Students are forced to take a foreign language, while foreign students can demand to be taught algebra and science in Spanish. My son, starting high school this September, must take Afro-Asian history before he ever takes American history.

 Liberals want to purge the phrase "illegal alien" from the English language and replace it with the politically correct "undocumented worker." Most infuriating are Mexican illegal aliens, who once disappeared into the shadows, now demonstrating brazenly in the streets of Los Angeles for the Reconquista"--the re-conquest and annexing by Mexico of the American Southwest.

This boldness is the result of 30 years of liberal influence by educators, lawmakers and the media, which have tried to reduce American pride to a quaint anachronism, like vaudeville or barbershop quartets.

This diminishing of American pride lies beneath our national paralysis over immigration policy. This paralysis is a standoff between left and right wing special interests and the American people. So says syndicated radio talker Laura Ingraham. The goal of immigration policy should be acculturation, the immersion of immigrants into our culture--to see, to taste and to feel what it is to be American. Immigrants must be lowered into the crucible of our culture and emerge as Americans. 

This is why the concept of a "guest worker" policy is abhorrent to me. It is demeaning and does nothing but create a "fifth column" in the U.S., which is not in our national interest. Theodore Roosevelt, 90 years ago, cautioned us that, "[n]ever under any condition should this Nation look at an immigrant as primarily a labor unit."

President Roosevelt continued, "[The immigrant] should always be looked at primarily as a future citizen and the father of other citizens who are to live in this land as fellows with our children and our children's children. Our immigration laws, permanent or temporary, should always be constructed with this fact in view."

People who come to this country legally or illegally to pick lettuce for 10 hours a day in 100 degree heat could teach most Americans a thing or two about work ethic. In return, we'll teach them the English language, our political system, and how to enjoy the blessings of liberty.

An immigration policy that fails to do this is a sham.

Just thought you might like to know.