Spanish in "America"

[wushijiao]

The state of Spanish in the US has been the focus of a lot of debate recently. Immigration is going to be a huge issue in the 2006 elections, of course. (Another cultural wedge issue by the GOP, if you ask me.)

A group of people went to sing the national anthem in Spanish, which became the focus of debate:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5369145

Here is an NPR interview with the prominent Chilean-American writer Ariel Dorfman. His view is that “Nuestro Himno” is a song that patriotically expresses the desires of many Hispanics to becomes full citizens of the United states in a time when the country is suffering a worldwide political backlash of disgust. He also thinks that America is destined to become permanently bilingual :

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5390707

Any thoughts on this?

By the way, at least 30 million people speak Spanish in the United States. The language is very much alive: you can watch TV and listen a wide variety of radio programs in Spanish. However, most stats that I’ve seen show that people tend to assimilate in the same time span (about 30 years) as previous immigrant groups (ie. Italians, Russians…etc). So I’m not really convinced about Dorfman’s assertion that the nation will eventually be bilingual, even though I think that would be a desirable thing.

In any case, here is an interesting anthology of short stories by a various authors about Spanish in the United States:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1581056761/sr=8-13/qid=1148469877/ref=sr_1_13/104-5673077-1508703?%5Fencoding=UTF8

[Ncao]

Canada has 2 official languages, I don't see why it can't work for the U.S. Canada isn't that much different from the U.S.

[mr.stinky]

is canada really appropriate? how about an example from north america.

[Ncao]

is canada really appropriate? how about an example from north america.

If Canada is not in north america then where is it !? Africa!?

[Language Guy]

I've written papers on this subject.

What disappoints me is that American English and even the entire American culture is not really one entity, but the dynamic product of a combination of dozens of different cultures since its beginning. So why should this process stop?

When politicians say they want to "preserve American culture", what they really want to say is "Anglo-American culture", but that would be political suicide.

[Lu]

I wonder if what they say now is not political suicide. If all the 'minorities' would vote, surely the Republicans would loose elections by a landslide.

[wushijiao]

If all the 'minorities' would vote, surely the Republicans would loose elections by a landslide.

Exactly. Bush has gone out of his way to appeal to the latino vote throughout his political career, but he has lost his authority, even among fellow Republicans. I’m not a fan of Bush at all, but I do admire how he realizes that the growing latino population by no means has to be a threaten to traditional “American culture”, Eloquent Syntax pointed out. I don’t think it is political opportunism on his part either. There are some things in the GOP agenda that fit in with appeal to Spanish-speaking demographics, such as entrepreneurship, family values…etc. (Of course, I also wouldn’t want to label all people who support strong stances on immigration as necessarily being racist, or anything like that). But it looks like some people in the GOP are committing long-run political suicide, although whipping up anti-immigrant xenophobia might work to squeeze them into office in 2006 (as gay marriage did in ’04, and the Democrats are Al Queda-loving wimps did in ’02).

I sometimes listen to ranchera music radio stations and country music stations when I’m back in the US (Colorado). The music is almost the same in terms of themes. If only people knew how much they had in common!