Huntington’s Book Focuses On Identity, Not Immigration

To the editors:

The claim that my forthcoming book, Who Are We? aims to spark a national debate “over immigration” is untrue (News, “Critics Claim Huntington Is Xenophobic,” March 16).  My book is not about immigration but about American national identity. Immigration clearly has played a role in shaping that identity, but Mexican immigration, which the article emphasizes, is dealt with in one chapter out of twelve. The book argues that Americans have historically defined their identity in terms of four major components:  race (white) which involved the enslavement, subordination and segregation of blacks, the massacre of Indians and the exclusion of Asians; ethnicity (British and then Northern European) which led to the mutual exclusion after 1924 of southern and eastern Europeans; Anglo-Protestant culture including deep religiosity; and an ideology (the “American Creed”) articulated in the Declaration of Independence and other central documents. Happily in the past half-century, Americans have pretty much abandoned their racial and ethnic definitions of their national identity. American cultural identity, however, is now under challenge from a variety of sources, only one of which is Hispanic immigration. If we become a society, our creedal ideology is left as the only defining element of American identity.  Can a people remain a people if all that holds them together is a set of political principles? Perhaps. But the historical evidence is not encouraging as was underlined by the collapse of the other contemporary superpower whose identity was defined solely by its ideology. That is the central issue dealt with in my book, and about which I hope we can have a reasoned national debate.

SAMUEL P. HUNTINGTON

March 17, 2004

The writer is the Weatherhead university professor.