… under current California law, Hispanic school children cannot be taught in Spanish if their parents want them taught in English. … But the left in general, and Hispanic activists in particular, have fought against leaving Hispanic parents with that choice. … This year there is a new proposition on the California ballot -- Proposition 58, very misleadingly phrased -- that would take that choice away from parents, and let schools impose teaching in Spanish to Hispanic children, whether the parents want it or not.

I don’t read California papers or plug into any West Coast news sites. Instead I’m usually found three thousand miles further east hunkered down under a four hundred year old Black Walnut drinking ice cold spring water and some very good coffee. But I do read Dr. Thomas Sowell. And in his recent column The Left And The Masses (in 2 of 3 parts here ) I learned this about recent developments the Golden State:

Stunning. In this one clip we see what Progressives in general and Hillary Clinton in particular mean when the say they’ve spent their entire lives “fighting for women and children.” Because to these people “fighting for” means fighting for the domination and control of women and children. In the exact same fashion, we might say, that the Mafia fights for domination and control of the concrete business in Manhattan.

And so the Left shuts off every option for women and children which does not advance the future they plan for America: No counseling for women if they’re considering abortion or in the first instance, any mention of chastity. No life for the Down Syndrome embryo. No children praying in schools or before athletic events, no children studying their people’s history without taking the darkest possible view of it, and so no children honoring their parents or grandparents, and no children taking any pride in their own individual achievements.

And now we see they will deny whatever child they can, the language of America in order to deny them the ancient dream of America..

Yet the desire for immigrants to see their children speak English is so fundamental to the idea of America as to require no explanation. It’s the reason my grandmother refused to speak Swedish while we children were in the room.

But much more importantly it’s also the dream of their children. A vision so many of them so doggedly pursue.

A Mexican woman who was helping me save a business of mine brought her daughter in one day and when I had a hard time understanding what she was saying I turned to the eight year old girl, whom I knew very well – but “I don’t speak Spanish” she insisted with the biggest eyes in the world.

Yet the most amazing story I’m aware of in this regard concerns an associate of my wife. An attractive lady in her thirties her and her husband were unable to conceive. A Russian language major in college she resolved to seek an adoption there. Eventually she was paired with a little girl in Siberia and a journey which would finalize the adoption was arranged. Meanwhile her mother, father and husband all set out to learn Russian so as to be able to communicate with the child.

But then once on the ground, she discovered that the little girl she came to take home had an older brother and sister in the same orphanage. Unable to even think of separating them she sat herself down in Siberia, IN SIBERIA, for several months while her family back in the States miraculously won all the permissions necessary (this is some woman and some family) in order to adopt all three.

Several months later she visited our home on business and I asked how the children were settling in and how well the children understood their Russian. “Oh they don’t speak Russian any longer.”

“What?”

“Yeah almost from the first day they played dumb if you spoke to them in Russian. They’d only speak English words and wanted to be spoken to by us only in English.”

“How could they possibly do that in school? ”

The woman threw up her arms, “Don’t ask me! I don’t know how they did it. But they did! It took them a couple of months but now when you talk to them you think they were born here.”

It’s the Warp and woof of what we call mainstreaming. You’re a kid who winds up in America. It’s like a kid who wind up on a Little League team – you don’t want to be left on the bench. Put Me In Coach, I’m Ready To Play, Today. It’s why so many of us love John Fogerty’s song Centerfield. We feel the yearning for the field and will do whatever we have to do to get there.

To belong. Even to shine.

But that doesn’t matter to the Leftists. It’s doesn’t matter to Hillary Clinton. They’re so antipathetic to the idea of America they’re going to force you to accept diversity, even if it kills you.

And your child’s dreams.

Richard F. Miniter is the author of The Things I Want Most, Random House, BDD See it Here. He lives and writes in the colonial era hamlet of Stone Ridge, New York, blogs here and can also be reached at miniterhome@gmail.com