To the editor:

This letter was stimulated by an op-ed article in an area newspaper. The article dealt with the English language issue, that is, the official status of English in American life.

Just for the record, my paternal great-grandparents immigrated from Germany in the middle of the 19th century. They settled in a German farm community in Allegheny County north of Pittsburgh. While integrating into American society through schools and civic life, they spoke German in the home until the mid-1890s. German was the language used in the local Lutheran Church until World War I.

Of course, a very similar situation took place in Kansas during the latter half of the 19th century and into the 20th. German was widely spoken in ethnic communities in Kansas: German singing societies, beer halls, churches, etc. Full integration into American society was not an overnight process; it spanned perhaps two generations.

Similar dynamics were taking place in the urban East, Polish immigrants into Chicago, for example, or Italians into the East Coast cities. We are a diverse society. As I read in the press, there are wonderful things being done in Kansas and elsewhere to facilitate the process of assimilation for our many and diverse immigrant populations, now more from Asia than from Europe. The American dream brings people here from all around the world and our society is greatly enriched thereby.

Howard J. Baumgartel,

Lawrence