A 2006 New York Times article on immigration to the United States and the predominant focus on the country’s English forefathers.
So amid the din over border control, the Senate affirms the self-evident truth that English is our national language; “It is part of our blood,” Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, says. Border vigilantes call themselves Minutemen, summoning colonial Massachusetts as they apprehend Hispanics in the desert Southwest. Even undocumented immigrants invoke our Anglo founders, waving placards that read, “The Pilgrims didn’t have papers.”
These newcomers are well indoctrinated; four of the sample questions on our naturalization test ask about Pilgrims. Nothing in the sample exam suggests that prospective citizens need know anything that occurred on this continent before the Mayflower landed in 1620. Few Americans do, after all.
While it’s true that our language and laws reflect English heritage, it’s also true that the Spanish role was crucial. Spanish discoveries spurred the English to try settling America and paved the way for the latecomers’ eventual success. Many key aspects of American history, like African slavery and the cultivation of tobacco, are rooted in the forgotten Spanish century that preceded English arrival.
