The Problem
Concern about culture, debate over cultural purity vs. cultural pluralism (including animosity between religions and conflict between the sexes), and debate over multilingualism have swung between extremes for over 500 years on these two continents alone, ever since Columbus set foot on these shores (Zinn, 1980). The conflict over such issues is itself, however, much older than the Europeans’ influence on what is now known as North and South America.
The central focus of the debate has been and continues to be whether immigrants’ cultures and languages should be allowed to exist alongside the native culture and language of the “host” country to which the immigrants come, whether they should be subordinated or replaced by the “host” culture and language, or whether they should be allowed to dominate and replace the “native” culture and language. This question has been particularly debated in our public schools and in the academie.