One of my biggest pet peeves about anti-immigration pro-nativist rhetoric is how it has created this universal idea in U.S. culture about what “stupid” really is, especially in the area of language. Specifically, if you don’t speak English, you are actually (among other things) stupid. Irritating logic to say the least, but somewhat understandable how easily racism can twist lack of comprehension into stupidity.
What is beyond fathomable–what just destroys my faith in humanity every time I hear it, is the idea that being *bilingual* (or speaking more than one language), means you are stupid. Or “lagging behind.” Or somehow unable to keep up with the world or simply unprepared for life.
Witness: This very interesting clip from CNN that showcases a white family that decided to send their white children to a school that teaches it’s kids in Spanish. Which means that the kids are fluently bilingual before they graduate.
Notice how many times the reporter let us know that the kids are not “lagging behind?” And that there is a waiting list to get into the school? And that, holy Jesus, it’s actually a GOOD thing to know more? That when you know more, you are actually SMARTER?
I’ve said it a thousand times, and I’ll say it again here. Only in the Good Ol’ U.S. of A. could the population be so blinded by racism that we actually refuse to be educated in the attempt to ‘be smart.”
Only here could we honestly take pride in and form a national identity around ignorance.
File under: believe it or not. Spanish language television news broadcasts are winning the ratings game against their English-language equivalents in top markets New York City and Los Angeles, taking the spot as the leader in number of viewers below the age of 49. Spain’s El Periódico reports:
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:
Spanish speakers have gotten used to seeing their language take a beating when it comes to URLs, since such common accents and even an entire letter — the beloved Ñ – have previously been unavailable for use in our browser address bar. Given the constraint, concessions have been made over the years, or people have simply had to call their website something else so as not to risk embarassment in the form of words like year becoming anus. But that’s all going to change now, as the Spanish government has labored to get the standards changed to accommodate the proper use of the language on URLs, as well as the characters associated with the other languages of Spain (Catalan, Valencian, Euskera and Galician):
While Newt Gingrich might think that Spanish is 
Nelly Furtado is pretty hot right now, and she seems to know that recording in English and en español a la Shakira is hot, too, as she’s in the midst of recording a CD in Spanish:
After the successful election bids of a couple of local Latino politicians, Santa Ana, California (Orange County) is now the largest U.S. city to have an all-Latino City Council, reports the LA Times:
If the politicians behind the story I am about to cite read this post, I’ll be crucified by writing a headline which begins “In Spain…” To some people in the Catalunya region, their territory is not Spain. For some real life manifestations of this sentiment, read on. It’s eerily similar to our own “You’re in the U.S., speak the language!” issue, the difference being the language that a couple of luminaries in Barcelona are being asked to speak is not Spanish.