To the Editor: In “Bilingual Miseducation” [February], Abigail Thernstrom conducts a rat her misleading discussion of both the aims and end results of bilingual education. Mrs. Thernstrom claims the philosophy behind bilingual education is to allow the Hispanic minority in the U.S. to assert and preserve its cultural differences, thereby signaling the end of the American melting pot. In her view, bilingual education is a new approach, aimed. At preserving the cultural differences of America's minority groups. Mrs. Thernstrom's approach offers a very narrow concept of “culture” as something intrinsically associated with language and national origin. American culture, however, is not necessarily the opposite of Spanish culture; I should know, since I have lived sixteen years of my life in Spain and six in the United States. They are both part of the same cultural tradition that starts with Aristotle, continues with St. Augustine, is passed on to Descartes through Averroes, and ends in Burke, Nietzsche, Freud, and Marx.

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