Geary Foertsch's latest column on Teddy Roosevelt's "polyglot boarding house" (March 27) was a difficult read. Only the last one-third of the text was really relevant. Foertsch did not explain the context of the Roosevelt quote, and did not cite the source or explain how the context of America about 100 years ago was relevant to today.
Foertsch name-dropped the 1965 Immigration Act also without explaining its relevance, but an internet search that I did showed a complex history going well beyond Foertsch's quote from Lyndon Johnson. Foertsch's idea that today's America is "post-American" and "multicultural-multiligual" and full of "diversity" and now requires "...American citizens to assimilate Third World cultures" is pretty strange.
All of my grandparents came around 1900 from relatively poor backgrounds and non-English-speaking European countries. They learned the English language, brought their culture here, and assimilated just like immigrants today. Recently, while in an IRS office I saw and heard an Hispanic kid converse in excellent English about a tax matter with an IRS agent, then turn and explain in Spanish the matter to his non-English-speaking mother. There were more exchanges. I will bet this process was not unique. Now, how many positive conclusions can be drawn by this example?
Foertsch completely ignored the question of whether a given immigrant was here legally or illegally. That issue would be more important to me than whether they spoke the English language. Foertsch also completely ignored the economic context of non-English-speaking immigrants: capitalist demand for cheap labor. Beyond the costs of teachers of the two "immersion" programs that Foertsch discussed - which I and other Americans pay tax money for - big corporations (eg. chicken processing plants) really do want that cheap labor. Rounding up all those illegals and shipping them out will cost a lot of money, too.
Hiring Americans will require higher wages and will cause chicken prices at the store to go up, too. Try to get the big corporations to not hire immigrants and you will be getting into a major cat fight. The big wall at the Mexican border will cost a lot more than ladders and ropes to go over and tunnels to go under. Experts say it won’t touch illegal immigration.
Foertsch’s whole column was nothing but a big complaint without any advocacy for or basis for any particular solution. The real problem is gridlock politics and endless arguing in the District of Columbia and maybe some state capitals.
Arthur E. Sowers
Harbeson
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