We just visited Montréal Canada for the first time. It’s a lovely city, but as American visitors we were certainly struck by the strong, even militant, emphasis on preserving French as the dominant language. And one certainly gets the sense that many in Montréal consider themselves citizens of Quebec province first, and citizens of Canada only secondarily, if that.
Now I can understand how this state of affairs came to be, as a residue of the early colonial battles between the French and the British for control of the new continent. And I can understand how the small remaining enclave of French-speaking descendents, surrounded by English-speaking provinces, want to keep alive their French heritage and language, and how this fosters the long-running separatist movement. Nonetheless, this Balkanization has caused Canada continuing problems and unease, and we ought to learn from their experience.
There are other similar examples around the world; the Basques in Spain and the Kurds in Iraq, Iran and Turkey come to mind. And, of courser, the Balkans stand as the prime example, even providing the name for the effect. In each case, the preservation within a state of a minority with their own separate culture and language and national identity sows the seeds of continual revolution and strife.
America’s great success has been the ability to absorb immigrants from all over the world into a vast continent, yet weld them all within a generation or two into a coherent single nation with a common language, common values, and a single, common national identity.
But in recent decades there has been a liberal movement to allow the Hispanic community to have dual-language schools, and to accept Spanish as a co-equal official language. Well-meaning as this seems, we ought to oppose it, because it leads eventually to just the sort of Balkanization that has caused Canada such troubles.
Certainly immigrants ought to be encouraged to remember and honor their heritage, and even to maintain their language as a second language. America always has and continues to benefit enormously from the infusion of new ideas, customs, cuisines, languages, attitudes and the like that new immigrants bring to us.
But all efforts ought to be bent toward assuring that all immigrants to this nation come to see themselves first and foremost as Americans, fluent in the common language and customs and values of the mainstream American culture. To allow any substantial minority within America to maintain a national identity separate from America – to continue generation after generation to see themselves not as Americans but displaced nationals from their country of origin – is to sow the seeds of revolution and separatism, and we ought to avoid that like the plague.
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