There was a time when people came to our shores to find a better life. To escape persecution and poverty and to build a better life for their children was their goal. They found Lady Liberty lifting her lamp beside the golden door.
What happened next was that people assimilated. Their children went to school with other children and learned to read and speak English. Their names may have sounded different but before long their voices didn’t. Sure, New Englanders sounded different than those from Mississippi, but they sounded very much like their neighbors. They became Americans.
I just finished reading Newt Gingrich and William Forstchen’s historical novel, To Try Men’s Souls, which is the story of the George Washington crossing the Delaware on Christmas night, 1776, and attacking Trenton. Trenton was guarded by Hessian mercenaries, who were some of the most elite soldiers in Europe. It was a mismatch beyond belief, but in a last ditch effort, their password that night was “Victory or Death,” and with the element of surprise, they prevailed. In one passage it mentioned American soldiers of Dutch and German extraction shouting to the Hessians to surrender, in German. They were probably closer to the Hessians in culture and blood than to their fellow Americans from Boston, but they considered themselves Americans and were willing to die for their country.
The Balkanization of America
Today, we are mired in multiculturalism. I remember the story of an Hispanic man loudly protesting to his local school board regarding bilingual education to which he was opposed. “You’re teaching my son to be a janitor!” he said, “I want him to learn in English, so that he can get a job with a future!”
We should not lose track of our roots. It is right to celebrate where we came from. One of the great things about New York is the different neighborhoods and parades that teach and celebrate about where we came from, which is good. But if carried to the point where we no longer assimilate; where we remain pockets of groups with their own identity and politics, we are in grave danger of ceasing to be America.
During World War II, what if people of German heritage refused to fight against Hitler or for that matter felt a greater allegiance to him than to America? Some did. They were tried for treason. What if they were protected instead? What if their differences were looked at with admiration rather than suspicion?
Fort Hood
Commentators in the news are twisting themselves in knots trying to disassociate Major Nidal Hasan’s slaughter of 13 Americans from his jihadist proclivities, despite evidence of outright hostility toward America and contact with a radical imam. It is politically incorrect, to speak of his religion. The Army Chief of Staff raises concern about negatively impacting the military’s record of diversity, if we focus on anything but a lone gunman who snapped.
But what if there is a larger plot? What if there is an effort on the behalf of some Muslims to purposely not assimilate, to infiltrate the military and become a fifth column within? Multiculturalism makes it far easier for this to occur because if everyone looks different, no one stands out. On the other hand, if everyone assimilates, those who speak, act, or plot against America become more obvious. Again, imagine multiculturalism in the United States in 1943. You might have whole communities that were German to the core, did not like non-Germans among them and quickly spread the alarm when a stranger approached. How much easier would it have been for Hitler to build a network of saboteurs?
Kill Multiculturalism Before it Kills Us
We must reinvigorate the idea of assimilation. Speak any language you want at home; dress any way you want; practice your faith as you please, but where government is involved, we should be treated equally. We should speak one common language for all official business. If not, where do we draw the line?
In Minnesota in 2007 a public university coffee cart was banned from playing Christmas Carols, but public money was being used to install foot baths to accommodate Muslims before prayer. After the terrorist attacks on 9/11 and now another terrorist attack at Fort Hood, we have to be able to tell the good Muslims from those out to kill us. We must have true peace loving Muslims, become true Americans. We have to engender that we are Americans first, like those early Americans of Dutch and German decent, and not have divided loyalties particularly where the “other loyalty” insists on killing us infidels.
