Many of them are persons who have long clustered together in ethnic ghettos. The English language is the vehicle of their potential cultural and economic assimilation into full New York life. Other immigrant groups have profitably had to learn English to walk the tenement trail out of the ethnic ghettos. Today. we are placing more emphasis than ever before on absorption of and help for deprived social groups. and rightfully so. Thus. it is paradoxical to me that we can even talk of catering to the forces of social reaction by disestabli.hing the English language in favor of the Spanishspeaking inertia of the slums.
Identified stereotypes
Immigrants clustered in ethnic ghettos are resistant to assimilation and economic progress due to their lack of English proficiency.