unarmedman wrote:
Are they wanting to play it at ball games or something, alongside the english version?

That would be pretty craptastic.

Why? Honestly, why?

I also don't think its racist to say that immigrants need to learn english. I mean, that's our language.

Who is the implied 'we' of this "our"?

Over 30 million American citizens speak Spanish. That's about the population of Canada. Are they part of your implied "we," or not?

It's not racist so much as nationalistic, and thus follows racist logic in the sense of being driven by a neurotic obsession with us/them, purity/miscegenation, sameness/difference, etc, etc.

The majority of people on earth grow up in (at least) a bilingual environment. It seems like a testament to the homogenizing dictates of American nationalism that anyone (like Bush) would be scared that bilingualism is infecting the pure body of the nation.

Nationalism and racism are inseparable.

Hence, a disapproval of an other language intruding on our national culture (e.g. baseball). What percentage of major league players are Latino, anyway? I've heard it's about 30 percent.

Interesting:

The majority of Latin American players brought to the United States - about 700 each year, most of them from the Dominican Republic - never had a chance of succeeding. Despite what they've been led to believe by major league scouts, their main purpose is to help train other players. Dick Balderson, vice president of player personnel for the Colorado Rockies, described the Dominican recruiting strategy as a "boatload mentality."

"Instead of signing four (American) guys at $25,000 each, you sign 20 (Dominican) guys for $5,000 each," Balderson said. "The unfortunate thing about this game is that there are so many people yearning to play it." Especially in a country like the Dominican Republic, where $1,000-a-year wages are the norm and baseball is a religion practiced by the impoverished - a fuente de vida (a fountain of life).

Explaining how the strategy began, Plaza of the Oakland A's said: "When we first went to the Dominican in the early 1980s, we signed a lot of guys because we wanted to have our own squad because we didn't want to have a co-op with another team A lot of mistakes were made and we weren't sending a caliber of player (that was going to be successful). It's unfortunate."

Defending the strategy, Sandy Alderson, general manager of the Oakland A's, said: "It's a reaction to the cost of player development in the U.S. Part of that cost relates to the escalation of free agent salaries and increases in signing bonuses at the amateur level.

"If you are developing two or three players from traditional domestic sources and you can add just one player to that resource pool every year, then, in effect, you've increased your productivity."

Further, officials in major league baseball say, though the recruitment strategy may be imperfect, there are always kids who defy the odds and make it. And because of this strategy, the officials added, there are more Latin Americans in the major leagues than ever. Indeed, nearly one in four major leaguers today is Latin American, the majority from the Dominican Republic.

http://www.aliciapatterson.org/APF1802/ ... legas.html

Andrew L. wrote:Over 30 million American citizens speak Spanish.

Only Spanish, or Spanish and English?

It's not racist so much as nationalistic, and thus follows racist logic in the sense of being driven by a neurotic obsession with us/them, purity/miscegenation, sameness/difference, etc, etc.

This doesn't make any sense.

Since the USA is a nation of disparate 'peoples' (as Bush would probably say), it is surely nonsense to cry nationalism in this context, non?

The majority of people on earth grow up in (at least) a bilingual environment.

Really? This seems like a crazy claim, can you link?

Nationalism and racism are inseparable.

Again, surely this is nonsense?

Racism relates to...race, or ethnicity, whereas nationalism relates to culture and territory. The cultural identity of the UK (for example) is absolutely inclusive of a varied ethnic make-up; British nationalism is not indicative of racism.

Here's something funny I read recently in an oral biography of Roger Miller (that's the Roger Miller of "King of the Road" fame, not the guy from Mission of Burma):

Harry Anderson (of Night Court "fame") was Miller's opening act in the early 80's. One night Miller said to Anderson, "You know, I've written hundreds and hundreds of songs, some of them pretty damn good, and this guy comes along and writes one song, one goddamn song, and it's all anybody can talk about."

After a pause, Miller said, "Fuck Francis Scott Key."

I wish they wouldn't sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" in Spanish
or in English--that song sucks. It's so fitting that we had to choose a song that romanticizes war and glorifies such an empty symbol as a flag. I think the national anthem, if we really need one, should be "This Land is Your Land" or at least "America the Beautiful." Or better yet, "My Old Kentucky Home."

Adam CR wrote:

The majority of people on earth grow up in (at least) a bilingual environment.

Really? This seems like a crazy claim, can you link?

Adam, I don't have time to elaborate on the way nationalism and racism are related, or how a debate about the national anthem might relate to questions of nationalism; but as to the above, David Crystal suggests that 2/3 of the earth's population grow up in a bilingual environment. I don't remember in which of his books he suggests this. It may have been English as a Global Language or The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language.

He writes about 9 books a year on language, so it's hard to keep track.

Meanwhile, you may be interested:

Spanish speakers were a majority in the territory [of New Mexico], with almost 8 out of 10 schools administered entirely in Spanish in 1874. Unlike Canada however, the US refused to officially recognize the Spanish-speaking majority and did not grant statehood to New Mexico until 1912, when Anglos finally outnumbered Hispanics. This put an end to any challenge of Spanish to the preeminence of English in American life and to the possibility of official bilingualism at the state level [N. Mexico would become "officially bilingual "only after English hegemony had been realized]. Wlliam Mackey observes that 2 different strategies were employed to dilute the importance of Spanish. First, state boundaries were drawn to ensure an English-speaking majority. Second, the US Congress waited until a majority was created before it would grant statehood. Consequently, different parts of the Spanish territory became states at different times, depending on when English majority was achieved (California, 1850; Nevada 1863; Colorado 1876; Utah 1896).

When the great immigrations of the 1840s and 1850s took place, prominent figures argued that public schools held out the best hope of turning foreign children into Americans. The education had to be uniform and systematic. [bla bla bla]. . . strongly believed that the schools must find ways of inculcating patriotism and republicanism in the young.

Federal spending on language programs for 1989 totaled over $589 million in Canada compared to $180 million in the States, with 10 times the populaton. Nearly 2.5 million elementary and secondary pupils received 2nd language instruction iin Canada in comparison to 240 000 in the US.

This is all from a book called, The Politics of Language, Conflict, Identity, and Cultural Pluralism in Comparative Perspective to Fucking Your Mom up the Poopshoot with a Del Monte Banana.

I don't see why you'd refute this statement: it seems pretty obvious that the majority of the world is bilingual. 2/3 sounds about right to me.

I would say that our schools' resistance to intensive bilingualism is rooted in nothing more than racism. Why not teach kids two languages? Or three? People should want to communicate with as many other people as possible.

steve wrote:That doesn't make you a right-winger. I don't know what awful thing happened to do that to you. Your presumption that the United States is for english-speaking people only is rude, and a touchstone of the right wing. The position is ugly, uncharitable, un-christian and ignorant of history.

I never said the United States was only for English speaking people. You assumed that to make an argument. You also (along with floog) assumed that I don't know any other language other than English. Again - wrong. I just didn't learn spanish. I shouldn't have to either.

You must think the EA forum is for dicks, no? Because those were real dick things to say.

The real right-wing, as opposed to those you like to categorize with opinions other than your own, would like to do the following:

1. Kick everyone illegal out of the U.S., and jail those that don't leave.

2. Create a militarized border between mexico and the U.S.

3. Create a path-to-citizenship program that includes compulsory English classes.


I am for none of these things.

But hey! Label away.



edit: added "steve" to the quote. that's all.

unarmedman wrote:

steve wrote:That doesn't make you a right-winger. I don't know what awful thing happened to do that to you. Your presumption that the United States is for english-speaking people only is rude, and a touchstone of the right wing. The position is ugly, uncharitable, un-christian and ignorant of history.

I never said the United States was only for English speaking people. You assumed that to make an argument. You also (along with floog) assumed that I don't know any other language other than English. Again - wrong. I just didn't learn spanish. I shouldn't have to either.

Sorry. The quote should read:

corrected steve wrote:That doesn't make you a right-winger. I don't know what awful thing happened to do that to you. Your presumption that the United States is for people who don't speak spanish only is rude, and a touchstone of the right wing. The position is ugly, uncharitable, un-christian and ignorant of history.

Texas, as a Republic, wanted to join the US. This was after Euros settled portions of what had been Northern Mexico at the behest of a Mex government that wanted to do what America had been doing, namely taking over land via settlement. The Mex government wrongly gambled on the idea that Euros coming to N.America could be assimilated into their way of life rather than having the land cede to the more culturally familiar American nation. The US eventually voted to accept Texas into the Union and, in doing so, it accepted an area that had longstanding cultural ties to Mexico, ties that involved people that, as a matter of course, crossed a bordedr that was political in nature.

I cannot fathom what import the Rio Grande has in this discussion save that it is a political border that has NEVER constituted a demarcation separating cultures. Texas has always been bilingual and bicultural. One could say the same of Southern Cal.

A desire to protect English as the national language is a rear-guard, reactionary position that has been spouted by conservative elements in this country since its inception. It has nothing to do with official languages or practicality as, as has been noted by pols and wonks over the years, worrying over the relative strength of the English language is like worrying over crab grass---it's is almost irrevocably ubiquitous.

There is no official language in the US. Spanish has always been spoken in this nation, on this continent, and it is very much a part of the heritage of the US as is English, though obviously not as universally spoken.

America, as the flagship outpost of Western Enlightened thought, politics, science, etc., has built its strength not on gingoism, racism, fear of science, fear of strangers, or any other body of natural though detrimental narrowness of mind and action. We are strong because of our ability to absorb many cultures, populations, etc. Controlling immigration is necessary, doing so according to idiotic sentiments aligned with the type of thought that leads one to say 'the official language should be English' or, even worse, 'if English was good enough for Jesus it's good enough for me' is simply the wrong way to go about that necessary course.

Andrew L. wrote:
Adam, I don't have time to elaborate on the way nationalism and racism are related

You said 'Nationalism and racism are inseparable', not 'related'. Clearly these concepts are related, but that is distinct from 'inseperable', non?

Also, you seem to have erroneously linked to an article about the riots in France last year; a mistake presumably. Could you fix the link to better bolster your point?

you may be interested:

Not really, thanks though.

[winky face]

connor wrote:I don't see why you'd refute this statement: it seems pretty obvious that the majority of the world is bilingual. 2/3 sounds about right to me.

The majority of people on earth grow up in (at least) a bilingual environment.

Growing up in a 'bilingual environment' is clearly distinct from 'being bilingual'.

France (for example) is not a 'bilingual environment' in any meaningful sense, regardless of the fact that a significant number of French people speak English, German and various other, more exotic languages.

The vast majority of Swedish people speak amazing English, and yet it would be disingenuous to describe Sweden as a 'bilingual environment'.

South Africa is a 'bilingual environment', and so is Malta.