Too Many Immigrants

Latinos Who Fail To Assimilate Are Undermining American Values

Prominent Latin Americans have concluded that traditional values are at the root of the region's development problems. Among those expressing that opinion: Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa; Nobelist author Octavio Paz, a Mexican; Teodoro Moscoso, a Puerto Rican politician and U.S. ambassador to Venezuela; and Ecuador's former president, Osvaldo Hurtado.

Latin America's cultural problem is apparent in the persistent Latino high school dropout rate - 40 percent in California, according to a recent study - and the high incidence of teenage pregnancy, single mothers and crime. The perpetuation of Latino culture is facilitated by the Spanish language's growing challenge to English as our national language. It makes it easier for Latinos to avoid the melting pot and for education to remain a low priority, as it is in Latin America - a problem highlighted in recent books by former New York City deputy mayor Herman Badillo, a Puerto Rican, and Mexican-Americans Lionel Sosa and Ernesto Caravantes.

Mr. Obama should confront the challenges by enforcing immigration laws on employment to help end illegal immigration. We should calibrate legal immigration annually to (1) the needs of the economy, and (2) past performance of immigrant groups with respect to acculturation.

We must declare our national language to be English and discourage the proliferation of Spanish-language media. We should limit citizenship by birth to the offspring of citizens. And we should provide immigrants with easy-to-access educational services that facilitate acculturation, including English language, citizenship and American values.

Lawrence Harrison directs the Cultural Change Institute at the Fletcher School, Tufts University. He is the author of "The Central Liberal Truth: How Politics Can Change A Culture And Save It From Itself." This article originally appeared in The Christian Science Monitor.