All Gone in Search of American(continued from page 5)nschools and colleges, and workers, managers, or owners at anplace of business. If (as the song goes) we’ve “all gone tonlook for America,” we should be looking in homes,nchurches, and town halls instead of writing propagandanabout an abstract country that has never existed and, deonvolente, never will.nWhat does that mean, in practical terms? For one thing,nit means taking a second look at our history and recoveringna sense of reverence for the myths and heroes that bind usntogether in a nation. It means recognizing that there is ancore of America that is thoroughly British—language,nliterature, values—that we cannot give up without givingnup ourselves. It is the one heart for which there is nontransplant possible. But there is also another layer—a sortnof common European inheritance through which we havenbroadened and reinterpreted the original identity andnfurther—a general sense in which we are heirs of thatnWestern civilization%anded to us by Greeks and Romans.nBeyond this point, even with all the goodwill in the world,nit is difficult to go. Refugees from other civilizationsn—Asian, Aztec, African—will either learn to becomennaturalized Westerners or condemn themselves to remainingnalien bodies in the American bloodstream.nThis brings us back to the English Language Amendment.nIn one sense, the amendment is only the latest effortnto impose a standard identity. However, it is not entirelynunjustified. It has been government—state and Federaln—which has attempted to impose bilingualism andnbiculturalism on the entire United States. In principle,nLatin American immigrants are no different from anynothers. However, our long and virtually open border withnMexico has meant an influx of illegal immigrants in suchnvast numbers that they threaten to overwhelm the residualnAmerican culture of the Southwest.nIt is not the numbers alone that create a danger, LatinnThe IngersoU PrizesninnLiterature and the Humanitiesn1985nThe T.S. Eliot Award for Creative Writingn£iigene lonesconParisnThe Richard M. Weaver Award for Scholarly LettersnRobert NisbetnWashinpon, D.C.nThe Ingersoll FoundationnofnRockford, Illinoisn181 CHRONICLES OF CULTUREnnnAmericans are the first immigrant people who can go homenat any time to renew their ties with the old country. What isnworse, the history of bad feelings between gringos andn”Hispanics” goes back at least to the Alamo and thenMexican War. If something is not done to close the bordernand maintain the preeminence of English in the Southwest,nthere is a perfect scenario for a massive Hispanic irredentistnmovement, which would see Mexico—not the U.S.—asnthe Fatherland.nBut a sense of national unity will depend on more thannthe English language—or, for that matter, hamburgernchains, TV shows, and pride in Pete Rose. The hardest partnis religion. What unity can there be among Catholics andnProtestants, Mormons and Buddhists, Jews and Moslems,nbelievers and atheists? It is small wonder that many Americansnhave fallen back on the idea of a secular consensus.nBut driving religion out of the public schools and townnsquares will accomplish nothing, except the further deteriorationnof the national identity. No society has ever heldntogether out of mere self-interest or the agreement tondisagree.nThe great religious struggles of the past were not so muchnabout doctrine as they were about nationality. Could anChristian be a good Roman? Could a Catholic be annEnglishman, a Protestant a Frenchman? The quarrelsnwithin Christendom may seem silly from a distance, butnboth the persecutors and persecuted recognized somethingnwe might like to forget: that human beings define theirncommunities in reference to a power that lies beyond theirnexperience.nIt is not just the ancient children of Israel or thenAthenians (Athena’s people). Even an atheist acquaintednwith the tenacity of modern Israelis or the stability of thenMormon church will concede some truth to T.S. Eliot’sndeclaration that there is “no community not lived in praisenof God.” But how are we to praise Him—in what tongue,nwith what formula? Ecumenical leaders might contentnthemselves with Aeschylus’ invocation:nZeus, whosoever he is; if by this name he likes tonbe called. , . .nBut a generalized civil religion is almost worse thanninstitutionalized “humanism.”nHistorically, we have considered ourselves a Christiannpeople. Even our “deists” and skeptics—like Jefferson andnLincoln—have inevitably expressed their deepest convictionsnin a Christian language. It is still possible—andndesirable—for us to recover a sense of that “mere Christianity”nthat we experienced at school and on public occasions.nMany Jews and Moslems are uncomfortable with the ideanof a Christian nation, but what is the alternative? As IrvingnKristol has pointed out so forcefully, the great persecutors ofnJews in this century have not been Christians, but quite thenopposite. When a formerly religious people turns away fromntheir God and creates a total and transcendent state, it isnthen they set out to destroy all vestiges of an alien faith asnimpediments to unity. If the United States ever does turn tonpersecution, it will be because its people have abandonedntheir religion and, like the Communists and Nazis, havenmade an idol out of the state.n—Thomas Flemingn