What Ever Happened to e pluribus unum?

Political scientist Samuel Huntington fears we face the possibility of losing
our core culture and creed because immigrants aren’t adopting to either.

In his controversial book Who Are We? Samuel Huntington, of “clash of civilizations” fame, argues that American identity is in danger. We face, he suggests, the possibility of losing our core culture and creed because new immigrants aren’t adapting to either. This only deepens his fear that multiculturalism will lead to the disintegration of both culture and creed built rightfully, in his mind, on Protestant fundamentals.

As a Jew I cannot be happy with Huntington’s view that America’s core culture is Protestantism; as a historian, I cannot deny it. What Huntington admits, but fails to focus on, however, is that the American creed—which he understands to be “people defined by and united by their commitment to the political principles of liberty, equality, democracy, individualism, human rights, the rule of law and private property”—adapts. Before World War II, we spoke of a Protestant America. In the post-war years the notion of the Judeo-Christian tradition emerged and both rabbis and ministers prayed at public gatherings for everything from the well-being of our soldiers to more prosaic aims like success in yachting races.

Our civil religion has since evolved to encompass all the Abrahamic traditions. Just as I was able to institute a yearly White House Hanukkah party in the 1980s, today Iftar—the feast at the conclusion of Ramadan—is celebrated there as well. But while culture and creed change over time, if they are to be meaningful, a sense of common purpose and a common community must remain. Sadly, that notion is absent in most views of multiculturalism.

Unlike France or Italy, America was created as a state before it was a nation. In the motto e pluribus unum—out of many, one—the “one” was adherence to the American creed, to a notion that America was unique. Fundamental to this idea was the belief that America was open to all—Jewish, Muslim, Christian—who chose her culture and creed. As historian Richard Hofstadter once pointed out, “It has been our fate as a nation not to have ideologies but to be one.” (Of course, we cannot ignore the tragedy of slavery—the founding fathers drafted the Constitution in contravention of the Declaration of Independence’s promise that “all men are created equal.”)

Nonetheless, Huntington raises serious points. Our view of those issues affects how we approach one of the most heated debates of our time—immigration reform. As a child of immigrants whose family was likely saved from the Shoah by the impulse to emigrate to America, I am loath even to contemplate pulling up the drawbridge. Nonetheless, the pro-immigrant lobby must avoid labeling any and all expressions of concern as racist or xenophobic. It surpasses the strange that we cannot propose efforts to regain control of our (now porous) borders without triggering cries of a “police state.” At the same time, it is impossible to imagine deporting 12 million people who are here illegally, as some anti-immigration hardliners have proposed.

While the human and social problems created by immigration have, in some communities, reached crisis proportions, the underlying battle over immigration today concerns not so much the number and treatment of illegal immigrants as the question of how immigrant culture feeds into American identity in a multicultural world.

Robert Putnam, the author of Bowling Alone, has argued that immigration-related increases in ethnic diversity have made American society less cohesive. According to Putnam, groups trust their neighbors less in a more diverse setting, where “bridging and bonding social capital goes down.” What can be done? “Americans must minimize their focus on ethnicity as a basis of social identity,” he answers.

The most obvious way to promote such integration is to promote knowledge of English in our immigrant communities. But what do many immigrant rights advocates call for? They want bilingual education, bilingual driver’s licenses, bilingual ballots and a bilingual federal government. President Bill Clinton in 2000 promulgated Executive Order 13166, which created a federal right to have government documents translated into foreign languages. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, there are some 311 languages spoken in this country. If we are going to take the political correctness folks seriously, we will end up with 311 official languages while Canada has two.

Inescapably, this exercise has caused a populist backlash. Congress debates legislation every year to make English our official language and forbid federal funds to be used for translation of official documents. Twenty-nine states have some kind of official English law. Even the icon of multilingualism, bilingual education, has lost much of its gloss. We have come to understand that these programs have little to do with learning English but have instead become, in former Secretary of Education William Bennett’s words, “an emblem of cultural pride.” Indeed, as former New York congressman Herman Badillo—a supporter turned opponent of bilingual education—pointed out in 2000, 85 percent of New York City ninth graders in bilingual and English as a second language classes failed to finish the programs by the end of high school.

The backlash has gone far beyond language and identity, with more and more people calling for protective walls and deportation. To be able to resurrect the link between immigration and American identity, we must be able to work out our immigration concerns in less volatile and extreme ways. One would hope that immigration rights advocates would agree.

Marshall Breger is a professor of law at the Catholic University of America.

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