America is divided. America has always been divided. The Civil War, the Civil Rights Movement, Democrats, Republicans, women’s rights and the war in Iraq are just a few examples. In the background of this chaos, another sociopolitical issue is rapidly gaining momentum, and it merits some attention

English speaking Americans are hearing a lot of Spanish. The grocery store, restaurants, Wal-Marts and the neighbors — it seems to be everywhere now. The Hispanic immigrant population has skyrocketed and shows no signs of slowing down. After the war on terrorism subsides and after the next presidential elections, Hispanic people will continue their travels to what they believe is still the land of freedom and opportunity. Or is it?

Native English speakers could choose to either embrace and celebrate the diversity, which is already happening to some extent, or respond in hatred and intolerance, which also happening. America is divided.

Samuel P. Huntington is a political analyst, chairman of the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies and cofounder of “Foreign Policy,” a publication that focuses on evaluating and analyzing America’s international relations. Huntington believes the massive influx of Hispanic immigrants is detrimental to this country. He thinks the persistent inflow will divide America into two peoples, two cultures and two languages.

Huntington expresses his ethnocentric views by drawing attention to what he calls “a major cultural difference.” Hispanics are laid back and indifferent to time and keeping schedules. Hispanics disregard the American dream and values. Hispanics and native English speakers cannot live in harmony because native English speakers will perceive them as lazy, good-for-nothing schmucks because they won’t be actively pursuing white collar jobs or climbing the corporate latter. Hispanics are to blame for controversy and social unrest, such as the English Only Movement, bilingual education and No Child Left Behind Act.

Huntington is basing these assumptions on stereotypes. The most common misconception is that Hispanics are responsible for increased drugs, crime and violence. Economic conditions such as poverty promotes drugs, crime and violence, not a particular race of people. Some of the immigrants might be illegal and uneducated by American standards, but that doesn’t mean they should be treated like second-class citizens. Unfortunately white-collar workers in middle management positions have taken advantage of the education gap and have used it as a justification to exploit the immigrants by paying them ridiculously low wages in factory jobs.

The truth is, almost all Hispanic immigrants are painfully aware that they are at a social and economic disadvantage in an English speaking world. As Huntington noted, yes, a community of immigrants will join together to support one another, but it’s not because they are planning a resistance to assimilation into American culture. They all share one common goal: to learn English as quickly as possible because that is the key to achieving the American dream. They want the same standard of living as, generally speaking, average middle-class native English speaking Americans. That’s why they came here.

To further support his argument that the Hispanic immigrants have no intention of assimilating into American culture and are therefore lazy, Huntington points to the fact that a lot of the immigrants’ children lag behind academically. This is an issue that educators across the nation are struggling with because there are several complicating factors, and that’s another subject.

Huntington obviously knows nothing about second language acquisition or bilingual education.

Some immigrant children are doing poorly academically not because they lack intelligence and motivation, but because of the language barrier. Bilingual education is an effort to help solve these problems.

America is divided, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. That’s the beauty of democracy. We can agree to disagree and fight for what we believe in.