ABSTRACT
A sense of national community is greatly enhanced by a common langlmge, Schuck thinks, as is keeping immigration small. liO Other f~lCtors include a skills criterion that facilitates integration into a post-industrial economy. These measures are not enough, Schuck warns, to prevent social fragmentation due to ethnic conflict, especially in a liberal state that encourages retention and celebration of identity (multiculturalism). Interestingly, Schuck breaks with his own analysis by rejecting the building of ethnic homogeneity as a means for ensuring long-term national cohesion. Not analysis but values, modern American values, rule out selection by race, Schuck believes. lil Yet for much of its modern history, from IB80 to 1965, America was ruled by, or preserved, values which Schuck considers UllAmerican. During those years, Congress deliberately undertook to forge all American identity by restricting immigration on ethnic criteria. Schuck ofkrs no theoretical criticism of these measures, perhaps because they accord with his own analysis of community-building. However, he is highly critical of the motiws activating these restrictions: 'class-based opposition to foreign labor, racist animosity towards Asiatics, xenophobic hysteria, religious bigotry, and repression of radical movements in wl.lich new immigrants from exotic cultural backgrounds were prominent,.h:! The contrast between Schuck's social analysis and moral intuition could not be starker. Although he defends national exclusivity as a means for protecting a dignified standard of living and building a sense of community, he rejects the restriction of immigants from different ethnic backgrounds who competed for jobs and small-husiness niches in nineteenth century America. \Nould it not he consistent with Schuck's own principles to limit the entry of those likely to hurt a large segment of the population? Also, it is diflicult to see why an exponent of a liberal welfare state should be critical of attempts to keep communists ('radical movements') out of the country. \Vould America's welfare, freedoms, or cohesion have been enhanced by an infusion of activists whose ideology caused so much death and destruction in the Old \""orld? Finally, it is odd to find someone who stresses the virtues of community, also pathologizing the pre/i.'rence for one's own ethnic group and religion with phrasf's such as 'xenophic hysteria' and 'religious bigotry'. If people are thirsty fix a sense of community as Schuck claims, if we nc('d a community 'to fully realize our humanity', ""'hy is this impulse not valid as a motivation fi)r restricting immigTatioll? Recall that in Schuck's view, immigration is an anS\\Tr to the vital question, '\Yhat are we;>'
