Call me crazy, but I think people should sing the National Anthem in the language they identify with. Time and again I hear this rhetorical nonsense about assimilation of culture. I listen dumbfounded at the postured and imbecilic words of the leaders and fellow citizens over the debate about immigration.
It’s entirely inevitable that some of the culture will combine and become homogenized; that said, the entire concept of culture is very dear to us all. To threaten a man’s culture is to threaten his very essence in most cases. You gape your mouth at the violent backlash over what you consider to be mere cartoons, a mere expression of free speech. Yet you also gape your mouth and clench your fist at the notion of someone burning your flag in protest; a flag you are quick to remind many sacrificed their lives for.
And then you requite the imposition that immigrants will remain only through the justification it would be too costly and even then impossible to fulfill the wish to remove all of the illegal aliens.
No, nein, nyet. Unless you are a First Nationer, you have to admit to being here illegally. Grant yourself amnesty, but grant amnesty for those that are here under good faith to work. The criminals are not of one citizenship and legal status. The illegal Mexican worker is in most ways helping, and ought not be taxed at those wages even if they were to be taxed. The legal citizen CEOs are far more damaging in their reckless choices to lie, cheat, and steal for their stock prices.
Until we recognize that making something illegal has never once made it go away, and until we actually try to come up with an elegant solution rather than a rash backlash, we will continue to suffer by our own hands.
So, to me, if a Hispanic American wishes to celebrate their cultural identity through song, and in doing so establish a new cultural identity that embraces the new land of these United States, I will gladly listen, learn, and sing along. The rest of you can shove your fingers firmly in your ears and refuse to acknowledge that this is not a gesture of disrespect, but one of friendship and kinship.
I am a fan of this post because I just returned from taking this asshole of a speaker to the Columbus airport. One of the first things we talked about was the immigration protest and he went on a rant about how it bothered him to hear the National Anthem in Spanish. Californian conservatives – they’re out there.
Sorry to hear about the conservative. It’s really an issue that draws a clear distinction between someone that takes pride in their nation and those that only pay lip service to national pride. In fact the latter only support a very scary subsection of the country. Hopefully more leaders will risk their careers for what they care about and start framing these issues correctly instead of kowtowing to the fools.