June 13, 2005
Last week I spoke about illegal immigration and the new strain of tuberculosis many have brought into this country through southern California.
There are other consequences to illegal immigration.
New census figures show immigration, legal and illegal, is creating a generational divide between old, white America and a young America of many races.
USA Today reports the influx of newcomers, driven largely by Hispanics, is taking the country far beyond the traditional red-state/blue-state divide between republicans and democrats.
It is forming a sharp age and race division.
Along with this divide, comes something else.
The old immigrants learned how to become Americans and to subordinate their old cultures, language and history to the country they were adopting as their own.
They wanted to and did become Americans.
Largely because of politics, many of these new immigrants seek to hold on to the things their predecessors left behind.
I fear for what this country will become if we no longer teach what made it what it is.
I'm Cal Thomas in Washington.
Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist based in Washington, D.C. Watch his television show, After Hours with Cal Thomas, on the Fox News Channel, Saturdays at 11 p.m. Eastern Time.
