An Expired Narrative

This drastic 1992 “linguistic pluralism” amendment shows how much we’ve changed since the time when immigrants had to remain on Ellis Island until they were sufficiently proficient with the English language to get by in their new country.

Portraying a furtive agenda as a benevolent endeavor has occurred frequently throughout our history.

Unscrupulous politicians have been able to hoodwink the public because it takes a while for their fraudulence to be discovered; Sometimes decades. The Reconstruction of Southern states is a classic example of this phenomenon. There were rational, well-thought out strategies put forth for re-admitting Southern states back into the Union after the Civil War. Unfortunately Radical Republicans were able to implement a “reconstruction” of the defeated South that was self-serving rather than public-spirited. Although historians agree that Reconstruction failed, the reasons given for its failure vary based on the political persuasion of the historian.