Samuel P. Huntington

Mexican immigration poses challenges to our policies and to our identity in a way nothing else has in the past.

I think clearly the United States, as well as other western nations, should stand by their commitments to human rights and democracy and should try to influence other countries to move in that direction.

The British were white, English, and Protestant, just as we were. They had to have some other basis on which to justify independence, and happily they were able to formulate the inalienable truths set forth in the Declaration.

And so in terms of territorial control, in terms of economic preeminence, the western share of the gross world product is declining as Asian societies in particular develop economically.

Our relationship with Mexico in this regard is unique for us, and in many respects unique in the world.

Well, I think the United States first of all has to recognize the world for what it is.

We also thought of ourselves in racial and largely ethnic terms.

It will take a long time, and certainly the West will remain the dominant civilization well into the next century, but the decline is occurring.

Also, of course, for most of this time most Americans thought of America as a white country with, at best, only a very segregated and subordinate role for blacks.

We really only came around to accepting and integrating the propositional dimension of identity into a concept of ourselves at the time of the American Revolution.

It was this society and culture that among other things - including economic opportunities here and repression in Europe - attracted subsequent generations of immigrants to this country.