Fortunately, these fears are mostly unfounded. A new study from the National Immigration Forum by scholar Gregory Rodriguez of the Pepperdine Institute for Public Policy indicates that the assimilation process has not broken down. Rodriguez cuts through the emotion of the issue and presents some compelling facts to document this surprising conclusion. Within 10 years almost 60 percent of immigrants speak English well or very well. More importantly, some 90 percent of the children of immigrants speak English.
Immigrants also have a high propensity to start new businesses here.
Certainly the assimilation process doesn't always run smoothly. But despite the romantic vision of our past, the truth is that assimilation never has. In Chicago, where I grew up, there were whole neighborhoods where the predominant language was Polish, Italian, or Spanish. In some cities in Wisconsin at the turn of the century, German was the de facto official language. Successfully assimilating newcomers has been the eternal struggle of this nation.