Of my relatives who happen to be Latino, most are meeting and even rewriting the challenges of mastering “mainstream” professional culture with great success. Had any of them been deprived of strong “ethnic studies” as part of their socialization, both formal and informal, I feel sure they would bring a somewhat duller, less imaginative perspective to their lives and work than they do.

I sympathize with your reluctance to broach the ugly implications here, and in that connection I also notice that I’ve made ugly overuse of “shudder quotes.”

Right — and America is Hispanic. And Somali. And Hmong. And African-American. And Ashkenazi. And Iraqi. And Swedish. And Chinese. And yes, even White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. Folks like Cheney and Horne want to privilege the white part, at the expense of all the other parts. And unfortunately, for all manner of historical reasons, they have the power to do so, to a great degree. Doesn’t make it right, doesn’t make it best, and doesn’t make it American.