¡Feliz Día de Independencia!
Friday July 4, 2008
Despite occasional grumbling that it may be too bellicose, the U.S. national anthem is hardly the subject of controversy — until you start connecting it with emotional subjects such as immigration and language. As the U.S. celebrates its Independence Day today, long-time visitors here may recalls this site's most commented-on blog post ever (almost 200 comments and counting!), this one related to Spanish-language translations of The Star-Spangled Banner. Fortunately, the controversy has died down — but the archived discussion still serves as a reminder of how something as commonplace as language can arouse.
Comments
When you emigrate to another country, and certainly if you become a citizen, one of the first things you should do is learn their language. New citizens of other countries are expected to learn the language well enough to function there, so why should Mexicans coming to the United States be exempt. There are English as a second language classes available all over the country, usually for free, so they have no excuse for not learning English. What’s worse, they have managed to convince the government that everything from public school classes to government forms be available in Spanish. Why does the United States allow themselves to be coerced into all this when no other country in the world would do so? If the Mexican immigrants showed some respect for the country they have chosen to live in there would be a lot less opposition to them. This is not racist, just common sense. If I moved to France I would expect for me to learn their language, not for them to make everything available in English.
I think it is outrageous and completely disrepectful to make a Spanish version of our National Anthem. Their own country doesn’t allow changes in theirs. If Americans don’t speak up soon we will all be learning Spanish to be able to function in our own country. It’s already happening to some extent with all the jobs that require you to be bilingual. These are not just jobs for international companies, even jobs involving local sales, clerks and many others are requiring it.
I have no problem with legal immigrants who live here and learn our language, many of my family and friends are Hispanic. May of them are more patriotic than a lot of native born Americans. The illegal alien population here is a source of irritation to them because they get tarred with the same brush and feel like they have to prove themselves all over again. By contrast, most Asians and those from the Middle East make learning English a priority and place a strong emphasis on education and work. You don’t hear them whine about making everything available in their language, they focus on making the “American Dream” work for them.
The United States needs to send back the illegals, get rid of all the bilingual nonsense and pay more respect to our National treasures like the National Anthem and the Pledge of Allegience (which is under attack by the Atheists.
About the Pledge of Allegiance and “attack by the atheists”.
The original pledge made no mention of the word God. The Pledge was attacked by the theists who raped the Pledge to stick in God’s name. The atheists simply want to return the pledge back to its original state.
Speaking of which, “Connie”, the author of the pledge wanted to write “with liberty, justice, and equality for all”. The problem with that was nobody wanted equality for African Americans and women. Women were granted liberty and justice, but certainly not equality (they couldn’t vote or perform other civic duties back then). Nobody really wanted women to have equality, and the pledge would’ve never have been as popular as it was if it had mentioned “equality for all”. Thus, because of the thing you have between your legs, the word “equality” was stricken from the Pledge. Sad, no?
And, after reading your disgusting comment, I have to admit that taking away womens’ right to vote sounds awfully appealing. You’re the last person I want voting in my country.
As for translating the national anthem, I don’t really see how it’s disrespectful. Perhaps it was disrespectful to translate the bible into English? Why shouldn’t we all have learned ancient Hebrew and Greek?
I’m going to take a wild guess here. You’re from the midwest or the south. You probably have no college degree. You’re one of those people who make very little money (very little defined as “under 40k”) yet you still vote Republican. Clearly evangelical. I’d love to know how close I am.