"Who Are We?" - New culture war about ethnic, racial identity emerges - by E.J. Dionne

House Republicans were able to pass without much difficulty a remarkably restrictive bill that would overturn Obama's executive actions on immigration. It was aimed not only at his measures to keep families together but also at a highly popular provision for the "Dreamers" brought to the United States as children.

This is the new culture war. It is about national identity rather than religion and "transcendent authority." It focuses on which groups the United States will formally admit to residence and citizenship. It asks the same question as the old culture war: "Who are we?" But the earlier query was primarily about how we define ourselves morally. The new question is about how we define ourselves ethnically, racially and linguistically. It is, in truth, one of the oldest questions in our history, going back to our earliest immigration battles of the 1840s and 1850s.

http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/01/new_culture_war_about_ethnic_r.html