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The ongoing relevance of Bush’s 2000 speech celebrating the Hispanization of the U.S.
A friend, who was as appalled as I was by George W. Bush’s August 2000 speech supporting the Hispanization of America, recently raised an interesting question. Since Bush does not seem to have repeated the same message since then, is it correct of me to keep pointing to that speech (for example, here and here) as indicative of his philosophy on immigration and assimilation? While Bush has not, as far as I know, reiterated the notion that he welcomes the spread of the Spanish language and the Hispanic culture in this country, his entire approach to immigration and cultural issues over the last five years has been perfectly in line with it. He created a Spanish-language version of the White House web site, thus telling Spanish speakers that they don’t need to know English in order to participate in our politics. He left in place the Clinton executive order establishing the right to have all federal government services provided in the foreign language of one’s choice. He makes it clear that he sees unlimited diverse immigration into this country as an unalloyed good. He makes it clear that he has no serious intention to enforce our immigration laws. He’s much friendlier to the illegal-invasion-fomenting president of Mexico than he is to the patriotic Americans who are trying to protect America from that invasion. He has fervently pushed for, and still hopes to pass, a law that would open the U.S. to every person on the globe who can underbid an American for a job, a policy that would amount to, quite literally, open borders. The list goes on and on.
So, though Bush to my knowledge has not repeated the words he used in Miami on August 25, 2000, those words accurately represent the spirit and letter of his presidency on matters of immigration, assimilation, language, and national identity. Email entry |