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Symposium Introduction: Immigration and National Identity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 May 2006

Extract

On February 2, 2005, newly elected Florida Senator, and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary, Mel Martinez, a Cuban-American immigrant, “shattered a 216-year tradition of the U.S. Senate … when he used the ceremonial occasion of his first floor speech to speak three sentences in Spanish.” This event represents the first time a language other than English was entered in the Congressional Record. He did so in support of Mexican-American Alberto Gonzales' nomination to the post of Attorney General. Martinez was rhetorically addressing his remarks to immigrants, whom he described as having come to America to seek a better life. He described Gonzales as “uno de nosotros,” or “one of us.”

Type
SYMPOSIUM
Copyright
© 2006 American Political Science Association

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References

Buchanan, Patrick J. 2002. The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization. New York: St. Martins Griffin.
Glazer, Nathan. 1997. We Are All Multiculturalists Now. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Holland, Judy. 2005. Lawmaker makes history: Speaking Spanish in Senate, Martinez pays tribute to attorney general nominee Gonzales. San Francisco Chronicle, February 3, A-9.
Huntington, Samuel P. 2004. Who Are We? The Challenge to America's National Identity. NY: Simon and Schuster.
Schlesinger, Arthur M. 1991. The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society. NY: W.W. Norton and Co.
Skerry, Peter. 1993. Mexican Americans: An Ambivalent Minority. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.