In the often plastic celebrations of this American electoral season and the party conventions, one subject is never raised. In fact, there seems almost to be a ban on its mention. The subject is citizenship.
Both parties this year have pandered as never before (although the Republicans have been the most shameless) to the idea of “inclusion,” even if that means making non-citizens equal to citizens in every civic role and damaging the true unity within the country.
At a recent conference here, these political maneuverings were the subject of a broad-ranging discussion sponsored by the Robert R. McCormick Tribune Foundation at Cantigny Park in Wheaton. The questions inherent in citizenship today were suggested by the biblical conference title: “`Thy People Shall Be My People’: Immigration and Citizenship in America.”
“Are they joining us?” asked keynote speaker John Fonte, senior fellow at The Hudson Institute, about new immigrants. “Are they becoming our people? Or are we becoming a transnational nation where people maintain their old loyalties while living here?”
Today, explained Fonte, a respected social philosopher and anti-multiculturalist, “the traditional patriotic view of America is under attack. We are told that Americans themselves should alter their values because of the demographic compulsion of immigration. We are told that the dominant culture should be changed and that it should now be based on migrants linked to transnational entities.”
“Post-patriotic elites,” largely on the left of the spectrum, he said, believe that we live in a “post-assimilationst age” in which there is essentially no American culture–and no real nation-state. Instead of the common American culture to which decades of immigrants pledged fealty, today we have “transnationality,” in which people can belong to two or even many putative nations. This, of course, heralds the death of traditional American constitutional limits, as more and more “Americans” become dual [or more] citizens [as is happening] with no ultimate loyalty to any state.
A counter-vision of the future–one shaped more by laissez faire economics than by American constitutionalism–was then laid out by political science professor Joseph H. Carens of the University of Toronto. “Governments should take some acts to encourage people [to think of America as their homeland], but it is a mistake to require them to do so. The government should be careful not to impose requirements where only aspirations are appropriate.
“These questions go to the heart of liberal society. People who live in a society over a period of time become members of that community. That’s their only moral claim. They have become Americans, in fact–and they should be treated as such.”
In short, anyone who wanders across the border, legally or illegally–anyone who chooses to be here, for whatever reason, law-abiding or not–should be considered equal with the citizen who has seriously plighted his life to the civic and philosophical meaning of America. This argument holds that these changes are historically inevitable.
Harvard University’s Professor Stanley Huntington disagreed: “A person here l0 years without becoming a citizen is making a deliberate choice not to become one. He is saying, `I don’t want to be fully American.’ Surely there is the basis for some distinction here.” And Fonte again: “What they are really saying is that the American moral regime does not have the right to reproduce and perpetuate itself.”
I would put it more strongly. We Americans have a sacred duty to “reproduce and perpetuate” our principles and our polity–unless, of course, we are indifferent to losing our coherence as a nation. An unlikely eventuality? Unfortunately not.
In a balanced study from the mid-l990s of 5,000 children of immigrants by the Russell Sage Foundation, researchers found that, after four years of American high school, the children of Mexican and Filipino immigrants were 50 percent more likely to self-identify themselves as Mexicans and as Filipinos than even as Mexican-Americans or Filipino-Americans–much less as unhyphenated Americans. In other words, identification with America actually decreased during that important period.
This is not surprising. Presented with the vacuum of philosophy and principle that America offers them today, these youngsters have to look somewhere for context, for a sense of belonging and for inspiration. So, hardly unnaturally, they look back.
Interestingly, this is not what the parents want. In a recent survey by Public Agenda, the social-science research firm, 87 percent of foreign-born parents and 88 percent of all parents said they believed “schools should make a special effort to teach new immigrants about American values.” And by 79 percent to l8 percent, parents of all races and ethnicities favored emphasis on “pride in and learning about America” over “focusing on pride in their own ethnic groups’ identity and heritage.”
The reason for this disparity is not is to be found in the educational multiculturalists and ethnic lobbies who control the curriculum and tone of the discussion. Furthermore, the children are being assimilated into an “America” of vulgar popular culture, of grievance and of demands.
That may be true, many will say, but this country is so strong that it can absorb and neutralize the dissension, as it has throughout history. Unfortunately, no again. Yesterday, there was a vital and predominate civic culture. Today there is not. Yesterday, few questioned that they would, if called, fight for the country. Today, will newcomers who feel themselves something else come forward to defend “our” country? The problem is an America devitalized by lack of belief.
The changes in immigration policy and citizenship training were conceived and implemented by people who believe in altering the traditional pattern of patriotic assimilation, against even the will of most newcomers themselves. These changes, which are neither inevitable nor irreversible, surely deserve a mention somewhere in the political campaigns.
———-
E-mail: gigi-geyers@juno.com
