I have an interview scheduled with Barbara Stanton on August 29th, 2 p.m. Pacific Time, on KIXW, Talk Radio 960, Victorville, California.

The news from an all too happy AP reporter about America’s continuing loss of a common language came today. Georgia’s first bilingual government school - Unidos Dual Language Charter School - is now conducting classes in two languages. One more than the other. Students at Unidos get about 70 percent of their reading, writing, social sciences and math in Spanish, and 30 percent in English, said school founder Dell Perry…”it’s [Spanish] sort of where things are going,” Perry said.

‘Mom, I’m a nino!’: Georgia’s first bilingual public school opens

By GIOVANNA DELL’ORTO

Associated Press

“… the increasing desire to preserve the immigrants’ heritage and the economic recognition that being bilingual is a plus on a resume is leading to a growing number of dual language schools like Unidos. There are more than 300 such programs in the U.S., the first of which opened in 1962 in Florida, and most teach Spanish and English, according to the Center for Applied Linguistics

“I hope people start looking at a diversity of languages as a must, and stop looking at America as a one-language country,” said Pedro Ruiz, president of the Washington-based National Association for Bilingual Education.

And so it goes.

The AP report closes with this:

Yolanda Hood enrolled her 5-year-old son, Thaddeus, in Unidos with the hope he’s young enough to learn Spanish effortlessly. She said that will help him thrive in a country that’s increasingly diverse.

“We’d be really arrogant to expect everybody to speak English,” she said.

Here in Georgia the news in last week’s DHS report that, as a state we suffer the fastest growing population of illegal aliens in the nation didn’t come as a surprise to most people here.

The fact that we have a rate of growth of illegal immigration - 114% that is more than twice that of the next state, Arizona (45%) turned a few heads, mine included.

Proof that Georgia has become a border state is not hard to find. The flag of Mexico is everywhere here and when I call my bank, the cable TV company, my health care provider, and a list of businesses too long to list, English is an optional language on the telephone.

This information contained in the federal report was a surprise to me however:

Illegal Indians in US growing fast

Indo-Asian News Service

Washington, August 19, 2006

Most illegal immigrants to the United States come from Mexico but the greatest percentage increase in their ranks during 2000-2005 was from India, according to official estimates.

I can’t help but wonder how long it will be before we hear the wails of “discrimination” and arrogant intolerance because American public schools are not teaching in Hindi.

Yet.

The Robert A Taft Club is a monthly meeting group of traditionalist conservatives and libertarians in the Washington, DC area.

Where: The Leadership Institute–Arlington, VA (click here for directions, parking, and metro info)

When: Wednesday, August 30. 7:00-9:00 PM

What: Race and Conservatism

There are few topics more sensitive than race, and conservatives have often shied away from discussing it directly. After Trent Lott’s praise of Strom Thurmond’s presidential run, a number of commentators implied that the GOP and conservatives have consistently winked and nodded at racists with code words and Willie Hortons. Race is clearly below the surface on a number of issues important to conservatives such as crime, busing, affirmative action, and immigration. How should these topics be dealt with? Should race and racial differences (if they exist) be a consideration in forming policies and arguments on these subjects? Should the GOP (and conservatives in general) appeal to hispanics, African Americans, and other minority groups? If so, how? To help answer these difficult questions are:

Jared Taylor: Mr. Taylor is president of the New Century Foundation and the editor of American Renaissance, a monthly newsletter described as “a literate, undeceived journal of race, immigration and the decline of civility.” He is the author of the books Paved With Good Intentions: The Failure of Race Relations in Contemporary America and Shadows of the Rising Sun: A Critical View of the Japanese Miracle and the editor of The Real American Dilemma: Race, Immigration, and the Future of America.

John Derbyshire: Mr. Derbyshire is a contributing editor to National Review,. He is the author of a variety of books on numerous topics such as Prime Obsession, Seeing Calvin Coolidge in a Dream, and Unknown Quantity.

Kevin Martin: Mr. Martin is an environmental contractor and a member of Project 21, a “an initiative of The National Center for Public Policy Research to promote the views of African-Americans whose entrepreneurial spirit, dedication to family and commitment to individual responsibility has not traditionally been echoed by the nation’s civil rights establishment.”

Robert Koulish writes in the Baltimore Sun and Common Dreams:

Turning over immigration powers to private companies further endangers democracy. Immigration policy, programs and current proposals are replete with references to privatization - enforcement, detention, inspections and services - that would place the fate of potential immigrants in the hands of private mercenaries and military contractors.

The Customs and Border Protection’s Expedited Removal Program has contracted with Halliburton to oversee the expansion of the federal government’s capacity to detain immigrants. Rep. Mike Pence, an Indiana Republican, has proposed deploying private “Ellis Island Centers” in foreign countries for the purpose of recruiting and managing guest workers.

………

The looming presence of “virtual” technologies, mercenaries and military contractors as front-line defenders for U.S. sovereignty is cause for alarm well beyond the potential for individual human rights violations. It suggests this country’s “deciders” are less interested in physical border fences that would harm trade and impede the flow of cheap labor than in securing a system of “virtual fence” and paramilitary strategies that would facilitate wholesale control over migrants in the name of profit.

What I think we have here is a glimmering that corporate interests and the wealthy are making big money off from US immigration policy. The problem of course is that slave societies never generate true prosperity. If progressives start to really understand-and articulate- how much recent immigration policy has damaged the average American we might see real immigration reform emerge fairly rapidly.