Theodore Roosevelt's ideas on Immigrants and being an AMERICAN in 1907.
"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...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 have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people." Theodore Roosevelt - 1907
No "African-American". No "Cuban-American". No "Anglo-American". No "German-American". Just AMERICAN.
WHY do we still have to check our race and nationality on so many forms, like applications? It's wrong. We should be past that.
In Miami, there are several areas that a person can live their whole life and never have to speak a word of English.
There was a press conference on Tuesday where our Mayor, Carlos Alvarez, briefly discussed the upcoming budget. I tried to watch it, but I'd say 95% of the speaking was in Spanish. I guess they can get away with that since it wasn't an official meeting, but it made me mad. Very mad.
A man on the radio today said that if President Bush were to give Teddy's speech, he'd be labeled as a racist.
This is America, dammit. Why is it so hard for people to get it? What will happen in the future when we have 5th and 6th generation Americans living here. I would sincerely hope that by then, they would all be speaking English. So what then about all this bilingual crap? Will it still be a "necessity"? I sure hope not.
The immigrants of the past came to this country and learned the language. They were happy and proud to be Americans.
What the hell has happened?
1 comment:
You are so right on the money with this post. I couldn't agree with you more. and you've hit on one of the reasons I couldn't wait to leave Miami. I was practicing law then and it became almost impossible to get anything done in the county courthouse without speaking Spanish...and that was back in 1985! I can't imagine how it is now.
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