The goal of European immigrants to the United States was characterized by the "melting pot" image up until the late 1960's. Then a trend of revival of the identity of ethnic minorities changed the slogan to "from the melting pot to the salad bowl." Cultural pluralism and maintenance of native languages became the goals of the movement. The massive school failure of the non-English speaking children led the federal government to legislate bilingual education programs in 1968. When a similar law was passed in Sweden for the Finnish-speaking children, the law was easily implemented. In the United States the autonomy of the states over the educational system has made implementation more difficult, and a Supreme Court decision was necessary to uphold the federal legislation (Lau vs. Nichols). Guidelines, known as the Lau remedies, were then set up by the Office of Civil Rights (HEW). Without such bilingual programs it was found that children lost their native languages without learning English, which led to impairment of cognitive development and school failure. Most of the bilingual education programs in the United States are English-Spanish, and research shows that without exception these programs increase achievement in Spanish reading. Also, achievement in English reading is usually higher than control groups in monolingual programs. They also increase the self-concept scores of the Latino as well as of the Anglo and Black children. (CFM)