PUBLIC DEBATES IN BILINGUAL EDUCATION Immigration, Education, and the Search for Our National Identity

In recent months the United States scrutinized the reauthorization of two critical pieces of legislation- those of the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Law and the No Child Left Behind Act-and disagreed on many of the issues involved in these two pieces of legislation. We believe this is an opportunity to engage in a deeper examination of the democratic freedom that allows us to become engaged in such disagreements and to probe further into this issue to address some underlying questions. As a multicultural, multilingual nation of immigrants, what is our national identity? Who are we as a people? What is our role in the world? And most importantly, how does this view affect us as educators?