• Front page
• Receive letters on your RSS reader

In defending the Democrats’ decision to ask Senator Ken Salazar to deliver a “pre-buttal” to President Bush’s State of the Union speech in Spanish, Senator Salazar says the speech is a way of respecting the country’s diversity.
It’s more than that. It is one phase in a staged bifurcation of the nation: “In the late twentieth century, developments occurred that, if continued, could change America into a culturally bifurcated Anglo-Hispanic society with two national languages . . . The driving force behind the trend toward cultural bifurcation . . . has been immigration from Latin America and especially from Mexico.” “Mexican immigration is leading toward the demographic ‘ reconquista’ of areas Americans took from Mexico by force in the 1830s and 1840s . . . Along with immigration from other Latin American countries, it is advancing Hispanization throughout America and social, linguistic, and economic practices appropriate for an Anglo-Hispanic society. ("Who Are We? The Challenge to America’s Identity” by Samuel P. Huntington, 2004) Whether one considers these developments desirable or not, the undemocratic character of this transformation should challenge every one. Narrow —- mainly commercial and elite —- interests are driving this change against the popular will.
Soon enough, it will be a fait accompli.
We will then be urged to be “realistic,” accept the loss of the historic American nation and embrace diversity, open borders and a North American Union.
It’s utopian folly but it may be unstoppable.
Tom Shuford
Lenoir, N.C.

This letter has not been edited.