1985 SPECIAL REPORT: "WHOSE AMERICA IS IT"??

”WHOSE AMERICA IS IT?” recognizes complexity. The ”CBS Reports” program, on Channel 2 at 8 o’clock tonight, looks at new immigrants, legal and illegal, and says they create problems. At the same time, it assigns no blame. Immigration policy is bedeviled by too many competing factors.

And chief among these, of course, are the immigrants themselves. By tradition and practice, America has not penalized immigrants. Assimilation has been the nation’s glory; the phrase ”a nation of immigrants” is a cliche. Immigrants have met hostility and resentment, but our institutions have been flexible enough to accept them. Immigrants, in turn, have accepted our institutions.

Thus a problem: What if immigrants decline to learn English? Bill Moyers, the CBS correspondent, reminds us that the United States is now the seventh-largest Spanish-speaking country. Dade County in Florida spends $18 million each year on bilingual education, and still graduates students who do not speak English. They do not need to. It is possible to live in Florida, and prosper, entirely in Spanish.
More on U.S. Immigration.

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