On January 22, talk show host Phil Donahue asked the question 
"Immigration: A threat to American culture?" on his self-titled MSNBC 
show. This topic was covered as part of an ongoing series titled 
"Angry White Men", on the "Donahue" show. Among his guests was 
Jared Taylor, editor of "American Renaissance," a publication dealing
with race and immigration. 
         
During the airing of the show, Taylor commented on the state of 
immigration in the United States, singling out Latinos as a continuing 
threat to the American way of life. "There are fifteen million Latinos who 
strain the welfare system, the education system and the criminal justice 
system," he says. "Those problems are in addition to taking jobs, primarily 
from blacks, and most importantly, taking away the American national 
identity." (MSNBC) 
         
Taylor goes as far as talking about "The Bronze Continent" and the 
Hispanics' intention of carving it out of America. "It's called 'Aslan,' from 
which all whites will be kicked out and it will be a sort of northern chunk 
of Mexico. You don't call that a threat?" he asks. (MSNBC) 
         
Another guest, radio talk show host Steve Malzberg, noted that the main
problem he has concerning immigration lies with illegality. "The fact of 
the matter is illegals don't belong here because they're breaking the law." 
         
Malzberg also feels that immigrants "just take their culture and bring it 
here and not speak English and not do what we do." Malzberg feels that 
immigrants are not fully assimilating into American society or becoming 
fully American. 
         
These statements by Taylor and Malzberg are not groundbreaking by 
any stretch of the imagination. America has always been a hostile place 
for immigrants. Even whites themselves have been hostile to on another. 
A political party was even created on a xenophobic platform of anti-
immigration (The Know-Nothing Party, established during the late 1840s - 
early 1850s…I think their name says it all). 
         
But as Ronald Takaki (Professor of Ethnic Studies at the U.C., Berkeley, 
Ph.D. American History, U.C., Berkeley) has noted in his books, the 
immigration experience for whites and non-whites are different, although 
not disparate. These differences are well illustrated by Takaki's own 
experience as a student at the College of Wooster in Ohio.  Takaki, the 
grandson of a Japanese immigrant, grew up on the Island of Oahu. With 
the help of a high school teacher, Takaki left Hawaii and headed to Ohio 
for college. During his time at Wooster, Takaki writes: "There my fellow 
white students asked me questions like: 'How long have you been in this 
county? Where did you learn to speak English?' They did not see me as 
a fellow American. I did not look white or European in ancestry." This is 
a noteworthy example how whites perceive America and the idea of 
being American. Whites view those two concepts as exclusive to only 
whites, people of European ancestry. It did not matter that Takaki grew 
up in Hawaii and was raised in America, to the students at Wooster, he
might as well have been from Japan. 
         
These experiences have been a determining force in Takaki's life and 
are central to his research as a scholar. Takaki writes, "As a scholar, I
have been seeking to write a more inclusive and hence more accurate 
history of Americans, Chicanos, Native Americans as well as certain 
European immigrant groups like the Irish and Jews. Multicultural history, 
as I write and present it, leads not to what Schlesinger calls the 
'disuniting of America' but rather to the re-uniting of America." 
         
Sadly, these incidents, such as what Takaki experienced during his time 
at Wooster were neither isolated episodes nor a thing of the past. These
characterizations of non-white communities as not American still occur
today. Yes folk, this still happens today. It brings me back to the 1998
Olympic games in Nagano, Japan. After Tara Lipinski beat out Michelle
Kwan for the gold in the women's figure skating finals, MSNBC headlined:
"American beats out Michelle Kwan". 
         
Both Lipinksi and Kwan are American, so as one can see, the implications
of this headline drives deep into the heart of communities who already
feel marginalized. This headline implies that Kwan, who is American born,
is not American. An almost identical incident occurred more recently.
After the figure skating finals of this past year's Olympics, an almost
IDENTICAL headline appeared. The Seattle Times headlined on 
February 22, 2002: "Hughes good as gold: American outshines Kwan, 
Slutskaya in skating surprise". Its probable that these headlines were 
not written maliciously, apologies were issue, but they do say a lot about 
the unconscious perceptions of what and who is considered American…
but I digress.



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