[kabar]

Obviously, but the EXACT SAME THING happened with Italians 100 or so years ago. They kept their language and had NO INTEREST in leaving their enclaves. But the country, as a whole, thought differently. We cut off their immigration, forced them to learn English, and sure enough they integrated.

I grew up in an Italian neighborhood in the 1940s and 1950s. The parents wanted their children to be Americans. Many of them did not want their children to speak Italian.

The difference between current immigration and the past is the persistent and less diverse nature of our immigration. Hispanics make up about two thirds of our legal immigrants and Mexicans about two thirds of the Hispanics. And the numbers are far greater than ever before.

Immigrant groups will not assimilate on their own (other than Asians, and that’s only because they can beat whites at their own game)...they have to be FORCED to assimilate, and I don’t see why that can’t work for Hispanics

Numbers. There are nearly 50 million Hispanics in this country now. There numbers will almost triple in the next 40 years. Meanwhile, the Hispanic population is projected to nearly triple, from 46.7 million to 132.8 million during the 2008-2050 period. Its share of the nation's total population is projected to double, from 15 percent to 30 percent. Thus, nearly one in three U.S. residents would be Hispanic.

[BobL]

“I grew up in an Italian neighborhood in the 1940s and 1950s. The parents wanted their children to be Americans. Many of them did not want their children to speak Italian.

The difference between current immigration and the past is the persistent and less diverse nature of our immigration. Hispanics make up about two thirds of our legal immigrants and Mexicans about two thirds of the Hispanics. And the numbers are far greater than ever before”

Look at your chart and read it right, please. In the 40s and 50s we were in the process of assimilating (i.e., no immigration), of course the parents wanted their kids to learn English. That was my earlier point.

Look at the 1900-1910 number, that was for a country of 76,000,000 people...one fourth of today’s population. It took until the 1920s on that graph for immigration to COME DOWN to the level of where it is today, when based on population.

But I agree that it is time for a timeout on it.