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March 16, 2010
Steven Emerson: Combating Lawfare
JWisdom.com How to perform a miracle with Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair (4 minutes)
Anne Bayefsky: Behind Obama's Dangerous Overreaction on Israel
March 15, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Father's obligations toward minor children
JWisdom.com Moody, Grumpy, Irritable Children with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Judith Graham: Get the whole picture before a CT
March 12, 2010
Rabbi David Aaron: You CAN have Heaven on Earth
JWisdom.com Manufacturing mediums with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: The march of the Red-Green brigades
March 11, 2010
Glenn Garvin: Conspiracy theories, why people believe them and how they spread
JWisdom.com For Yourself, Not By Yourself with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer : Turn leftovers into tasty New England hash
Paul Richter: Biden promises 'viable Palestine' is in the offing
March 10, 2010
Paul Greenberg: Death Checks In
JWisdom.com How To Get A (Real) Life with Rabbi Warren Goldstein ( EXTENDED EPISODE)
Paul Richter: Israel exerts soverign right to its capital as Biden looks on astounded
Richard A. Serrano: 'Jihad Jane' indictment alleges threat from within U.S.
March 9, 2010
Wesley Pruden: Joe's Israeli adventure
JWisdom.com Free To Be (Responsibly) You and Me! with Rabbi Naftali Brawer ( 8 MINUTES)
David G. Savage: Supreme Court to rule on free speech in case of soldier's funeral
March 8, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Make a fuss about those who cuss?
JWisdom.com Finding or Losing Yourself? Here's How! with Rabbi David Aaron ( 5 MINUTES)
Steven Emerson: America must learn from the UK about the future of Islamist subversion
March 5, 2010
Rabbi Berel Wein: Golden Calf still with us --- except it has multiplied
JWisdom.com The Limits of Eternity with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: Biden's lost cause
March 4, 2010
Alan M. Dershowitz: How About A Real Campaign Against Abuses?
JWisdom.com Using Things, Loving People with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff ( 7 MINUTES)
Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkel's Everything's Relative
March 3, 2010
JWisdom.com Grasping The Name of Your Life Game with Rabbi Warren Goldstein ( 8 MINUTES)
The Kosher Gourmet by Marialisa Calta : A cowboy's recipes for really good grub
March 2, 2010
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Someone's there
Diane Toroian Keaggy : Have we misunderstood Michelangelo?
March 1, 2010
JWisdom.com Whole in One with Rabbi David Aaron ( 5 MINUTES)
Michael Muskal: Hillary meets with Israeli official, discusses gefilte fish dispute
Feb. 26, 2010
Rabbi Francis Nataf: The Megilla of Spring
JWisdom.com A Biblical Secret for a More Powerful You with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: When rhetoric rules the roost
Feb. 25, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: When walking away from your mortgage is both economically sound and makes ethical sense
JWisdom.com The Second Most Important Question in Your Life with Rabbi Yehoshua Karsh ( 5 MINUTES)
Seema Mehta : U.S.-Israel relations raised in California's Senate race --- by conservatives
Feb. 24, 2010
Rabbi Avi Shafran: The gift of the ‘prayer bomber’
Steven Emerson: Why Religious Freedom Commission is under attack
Feb. 23, 2010
Dennis Prager: Government, Yes! The Divine and Parents, No!
JWisdom.com The Last Laugh of Enlightenment with Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair ( 5 MINUTES)
Anne Applebaum: Prepare for war with Iran --- in case Israel strikes
Feb. 22, 2010
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Is it not refreshing Tiger Woods' career has crashed and burned so dramatically?
JWisdom.com Esther and the third Truth with Rabbi David Aaron ( 9 MINUTES)
Kelly Brewington: Going smoke-free may raise diabetes risk
Feb. 19, 2010
Rabbi David Aaron: Is the Divine beyond us or within us?
JWisdom.com Olympic Faith with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: Israel and the West are perpetrators of a myth that endangers the Jewish State
Feb. 18, 2010
Cal Thomas: Who is Rashad Hussain?
JWisdom.com A Wedding Disaster to Remember with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein ( 3 MINUTES)
Feb. 17, 2010
JWisdom.com Think your life is messed up? with Rabbi David Aaron ( 11 MINUTES)
Greg Logan: 'Greatest Jewish sporting event of all time since David versus Goliath' may be postponed because of bar mitzvah
Feb. 16, 2010
Anya Martin : Boy's 'cerebral palsy' fixed with diet
JWisdom.com Feet On The Street Spirituality with Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 8 MINUTES)
Marty Peretz: Let Europe Mind Its Own Business. It Brings Nothing To The Table Save For Mischief
Feb. 15, 2010
Herb Geduld: Lincoln and the Jews
JWisdom.com Are Our Children Really Ours? with Rabbi Mordechai Becher ( 5 MINUTES)
Susan King: 'Wolf Man' reflected writer's wartime Jewish experience

Jewish World Review August 15, 2008 / 14 Menachem-Av 5768

A majority minority nation

By Linda Chavez


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | A majority minority nation: that's what the U.S. Census Bureau is projecting by the year 2042, according to new figures released this week. By mid-century, according to the government's projections, Hispanics, Asians and blacks will outnumber non-Hispanic whites by about 32 million. The statistics make for interesting headlines — and, no doubt, cause heartburn in certain circles — but the fact is: they are more or less meaningless. The problem in all such predictions is that they don't take sufficient account of intermarriage and assimilation.


From our founding as a nation, there have been those who worried that "foreigners" would overwhelm us and change our national character. Benjamin Franklin warned in 1751: "Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them?"


It's true, Germans are our largest ethnic group today — numbering 43 million in the last decennial Census — but so what? Despite German language schools — which enrolled as many as 600,000 students in 1900 — and even some efforts by German emigres to form a German ethnic state in Texas or Wisconsin in the 19th century, Americans of German ancestry all speak English today and are entirely integrated into the American mainstream.


Similar worries emerged in the early 20th century, when millions of southern and eastern Europeans flooded our shores. Madison Grant, a Yale-educated lawyer and leader in the eugenics movement, predicted, "… in large sections of the country the native American will entirely disappear. He will not inter-marry with inferior races and he cannot compete in the sweat shop and in the street trench with the newcomers."


But Grant turned out to be spectacularly wrong. The progeny of those Italian, Polish, and other immigrants succeeded in learning English, improving not only their own economic standing but that of all Americans. They also intermarried to an astonishing degree. Nearly three-quarters of young Americans of Italian ancestry were married to spouses of non-Italian ancestry in 1990 and the figures for Americans of Polish descent were even higher, according to sociologists Richard Alba and Victor Nee in their book, "Remaking the American Mainstream."


And the same holds true for Asian Americans and Hispanics today. Intermarriage is becoming the norm. About one-third of married Asian American males are married to non-Asian women, as are nearly half of Asian American females. Among U.S.-born Hispanics, the number is similar, with about one-third who are married to non-Hispanic spouses. And the number is higher among college-educated Hispanics, especially women, according to the Population Reference Bureau.


But I don't need to consult a demographer to know what's happening in terms of intermarriage and assimilation in the United States; I can look at my own family. I am the daughter of a father whose family came to New Mexico from Spain in 1601, and a mother whose ancestors came from England sometime before 1800 and from Ireland in the mid-1800s. I married a man whose Jewish ancestors came from Poland and Russia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. One of our sons married a woman whose ancestors are Scots-Irish and German. Another of our sons married a woman whose mother was born in Ecuador and whose father came from Cuba.


Our eight grandchildren are a perfect reflection of the American Melting Pot. But in order to create the new American majority minority the Census Bureau has concocted, each of these children would have to be classified as Hispanic, even those who are only one-eighth Hispanic.


Isn't it time we quit obsessing about race and ethnicity? America has successfully integrated millions of people from every region of the world. Every indication is that we are still doing so. The naysayers keep being proven wrong when it comes to the great American assimilation machine. Come 2042, these "majority minority" predictions will look as silly as Ben Franklin's worries about Germans do today.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.


JWR contributor Linda Chavez is President of the Center for Equal Opportunity. Her latest book is "Betrayal: How Union Bosses Shake Down Their Members and Corrupt American Politics". (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.)

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© 2006, Creators Syndicate

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