Posts Tagged ‘Bilingualism’
Racist Right Doesn’t Know How to Spell
6:15 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Controversia| Funny| Politics| language| race · Comments Off
23 Jun 2009…in English. From Think Progress, this is hilarious.
These fools were at a “conferenece” (!) arguing for English Only, spelling the word “conference” como el culo and using Sonia Sotomayor as the central figure for their ignorant rhetoric:
PAT BUCHANAN: Judge Sotomayor is up there at school in New York, she gets a scholarship to Princeton, she’s graduated with all these big honors and awards they said she never won. What’s she doing there in the summer? They said her adviser told her to read children’s classics so she can learn English better. How do you graduate number one in Princeton if you’re in the summer and you’re reading Rumpelstiltskin and Snow White? [laughter] [...]
Yeah…”so she can learn English better”… What tense are we speaking in? Nice grammar on you, too, Pat!
That’s a segue into a delusional rant about how Obama is out to make everyone speak Spanish:
PETER BRIMELOW: I really do recommend the language issue because you know that polls better than immigration and affirmative action. Eighty-five percent of Americans say they would favor official language policy. The wonderful thing about this issue if you look at what’s going to actually happen here is you’re going to find that the Obama administration is going to gradually institute institutional bilingualism in the country. It’s going to be required to speak Spanish in key positions, the police force and so on. This is a direct attack on the American working class because they are not going to be bilingual.
Right. Because Obama himself speaks Spanish so well.
WHAT. THE. F***?!
This is what we call in Spanish patadas de ahogado. The Republicans are giving up the ghost.
Via / Think Progress and Hispanic Tips (Thanks Tomás)
My Bilingual Kids Are Smarter Than Your English Only Kids!
10:27 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Bilingualism| Education| language · Comments Off
24 Apr 2008
Nanny, nanny boo boo. The fact that I speak English and Spanish to my children is actually boosting their English language skills, according to one article.
“Speaking two languages opens up a whole new world to children,” says Laurie Weaver, Ed.D., Associate Professor of Bilingual and Multicultural Studies at University of Houston-Clear Lake. “Not only will they be better prepared to understand others, they will also understand themselves and their own language better.”
Weaver is one of many parents who believes in the value of their children speaking two languages. Research has shown that kids who are routinely exposed to a second language from an early age, consistently score higher on English tests as an older child. Apparently learning a second language not only makes you bilingual, it also increases English proficiency.
Does Something Being Also in Español Bother You
10:40 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Bilingualism| Blogs| Internet| Politics| language · Comments Off
16 Apr 2008
Most of our readers probably aren’t bothered by websites being available in Spanish as well as English, in fact many of you are pleased with that option that includes a large, growing portion of our population. The Hillary Clinton campaign website and Barack Obama campaign websites both have Spanish language versions available from their main page (not so for John McCain). One U.S. Senate race in Texas however, is getting heat for offering information in Spanish. Texas Democrat Rick Noriega’s site is being called offensive for having an en Español button. One blogger asks:
Is it just me, or is the “en español” button on Noriega’s site highly offensive?
Schwarzenegger: Latinos Need to Stop Watching Spanish TV
10:39 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · California| Immigration| Politics| TV| language · 2 Comments
14 Jun 2007
California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger isn’t known for his speaking well of Latinos but he was given a chance to clarify his position on key issues like immigration yesterday at the National Association of Hispanic Journalists‘ 25th anniversary convention. The governator didn’t disapoint drawing gasps when he said that Latino immigrants need to stop watching Spanish language t.v.
“I know it sounds odd, and I may be getting myself in trouble for saying this,” Schwarzenegger said before launching into a retelling of his own struggle to master English. “I got rid of the television set and learned.”He added: “Even in the state capital, so many Latinos speak Spanish all the time.”
Santa Ana, California Putting its Money Where Its English Is
2:33 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Bilingualism| California| Education| Labor| language · 4 Comments
10 Apr 2007
While Newt Gingrich can’t decide if Spanish is ghetto or if he should use it to try and get Latino support, Santa Ana in Orange County, California is putting $4.5 million into getting residents to learn English.
The effort, which aims to have 55,000 residents learn the language over the next four years, includes an aggressive advertising campaign with messages posted at supermarkets, bus depots and elsewhere touting the advantages of learning a new language.
Teams of people also have been dispatched to the streets to promote free English classes, which are offered by the Rancho Santiago Community College District.
“Business owners are screaming for workers, but they need them to speak English,” said Mike Weisman, a chamber board member and partner at DGWB Advertising and Communications, which created the ad campaign.
Census statistics show that at least 51 percent of city residents “speak English less than very well.” More than half the city’s employees speak Spanish, and nearly every retail business has Spanish-speaking employees.
Newt : Not Ghetto Fabulous
3:04 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Bilingualism| Politics| literature · Comments Off
3 Apr 2007
Sure his website pushing for him to be the next president of the United States may have a page in Spanish, but that doesn’t mean Newt Gingrich has to like the language. In a speech to the National Federation of Republican Women (sound like a party to me), Newt said that bilingual education made people who could only speak the language of the ghetto.
“The American people believe English should be the official language of the government. … We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country and they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto,”
Newt also said that he was against multilingual voting ballots.
Don’t you love how politicos use Spanish when it works for them and when it doesn’t, they trash it?
Via / The Sun-Sentinal
Image Via / NNDB
Accent Marks : The Difference Between a Year and an Ass
9:14 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Bilingualism| Newspapers| language · 3 Comments
23 Oct 2006
I read an article off of Yahoo! mail this morning with great interest because it’s an issue I face everyday as a Latina writer writing about Latino experiences. To accent or not to accent, that is the question and according to the article I’m not the only one asking.
Newspapers have long maintained that technological problems and editorial confusion make it too difficult to add accents, officially known as diacritical marks. For Colon, now a faculty member at The Poynter Institute of journalism in St. Petersburg, Fla., it’s a question of accuracy, one of the basic tenets of journalism.The absence of accents can change the pronunciation and the meaning of a word.
The name Pena, without the tilde over the “n,” means shame. The Spanish word for year without that squiggle becomes anus.
Latinos are Not a Threat to English Language
11:52 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Bilingualism| Controversia| Immigration| language · Comments Off
19 Sep 2006
I was watching Pat Buchanan on Real Time with Bill Maher go on and on about how the United States is being invaded by Latinos and that the English language is threatened. I won’t even get into how English has always been a language that has borrowed from other languages and instead will point to a recent report that says “no way Jose” to the English only, anti-Latino immigrant hype.
A few generations after families in Latin American countries move to the United States, fluency in Spanish dies out and English becomes dominant, according to a new paper published by sociology professors from California and New Jersey. The study suggests that Mexican immigrants arriving in Southern California today can expect only five out of every 100 of their great-grandchildren to speak fluent Spanish.
Via / MercuryNews.com
Juanes: Spreading the love en la lengua de Cervantes
6:56 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Bilingualism| Celebrities| Music · 1 Comment
9 Feb 2006
Last week Mala reported on Shakira’s claim that her crossover into the English language market had nothing to do with money. It seems that not all the money in the world, his label’s pressure or potential for fame in Europe will make Juanes do it:
The artist is doing so while performing in his native language. Juanes — whose full name is Juan Esteban Aristizabal — speaks English fluently, but is not interested in it for singing.
“I’m still thinking in Espanol, I still dream in Espanol, and I write my music in Espanol,” he says. “I don’t see why I need to change.”
If you love it so much, why don’t you marry it?
5:51 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Bilingualism| Politics| TV · 5 Comments
17 Nov 2005
As a follow-up to Rebecca’s post on Florida state senator Leslie Miller’s proposal to teach children Spanish in school from grades K-2, I wanted to comment on an exchange I witnessed between Senator Miller and (shiver) Tucker Carlson on the latter’s cable television show which left me despising Carlson even more. Not just because he’s a Republican but because he came off as a childish idiot. In response to Miller’s question of why we shouldn’t start teaching kids Spanish early and let them decide later if they want to continue:
CARLSON: Well, I’ll tell you why. Look, it sounds like you’re open to voluntary solution, which is certainly better than the compulsory one. But there are a lot of things you’d like your kids to know. You know, you’d love to learn them—how to learn to play the xylophone, or the accordion, or speak Esperanto or, you know, learn a lot about Finland.
He’s comparing learning Spanish, regarded by most as second most important language in the world to Esperanto and the xylophone. (He also said “learn them”. Jeez.)
Hola!
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- Mangos With Chili Presents Beloved: A Requiem for Our Dead in the Bay Area Tonite & Nov. 15th
- Vigil for Marcelo LuceroThis Evening in Patchogue, Long Island, NY
- VL At The Cine: The Fourth Kind
- Rihanna interview
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- Remembering Marcelo Lucero : One Year Later, The List of Hate Crimes Grows Longer
- Rihanna Speaks
- A Message To Maine
- Maine Voters Said Yes on 1 and Yes to Marriage Inequity
- New York City Wakes Up to Four More Years of Bloomberg
