Buchanan: English unites
Jon Kamman
The United States risks breaking up if it doesn't immerse newcomers in English and block further illegal immigration, presidential candidate Pat Buchanan said Tuesday in Phoenix. "If we're going to have a society that stays together, we've got to have a common language," the Reform Party nominee told a news conference. "Unrestricted immigration is overwhelming the melting pot. It's particularly acute in Arizona, where Douglas has basically become the open wound in a bleeding border." He said that if he were elected president, he would double the Border Patrol force, build fences, and "if necessary, put American troops on the border." Buchanan, the nominee of one faction of a divided party, has won at best only a few percentage points of support in recent polls. The two major parties "seem to be afflicted with political timidity or political cowardice" on immigration, he said. He accused President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore of "not doing their constitutional job to protect the nation's borders." Buchanan said that because Mexico adjoins the United States and Spanish is becoming more prevalent with immigration, cultural differences are dividing people in the same way ethnic Albanians in Kosovo are in conflict with Serbians. On the need for English immersion, Buchanan unveiled his campaign's television commercial now playing in 12 states, including Arizona, and scheduled to expand to 24 states next week. The 30-second spot shows a man eating dinner and choking on food when he hears an announcement that English is no longer the nation's official language. He calls the 911 emergency line and hears instructions to "listen for your language." As the options proceed from "for Spanish, press 1," through Korean, Bengali, Russian, Swedish and eventually, "for Swahili, press 12," the man keels over. Buchanan said the ad does not purport to represent reality, but is an "artistic creation that simply makes a point . . . that all of us need to know English." Any suggestion that the ad could be seen as racist is "an utterly silly proposition," he said. Hispanics legally in the United States "are every bit as American as I am," Buchanan said, "but we all have to learn the same language." His comments represented support for Proposition 203, an initiative measure on the Nov. 7 ballot that would overhaul bilingual education by requiring public schools to offer non-English-speaking students one year of language-immersion classes before transitioning them into regular classes. Reach the reporter at jon.kamman@arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-4816. |