The first weekend of Jazzfest is over and a much-needed respite is here. Most people take breaks from work, while I work to get away from hectic weekends. My workstation and PC, headphones piping in hot, hot Lucy and a window office are all I need to relax.
This morning, P’s voice rang out from the office next door, “Look out your window at St. Charles.” What now? New construction? A fallen building? Yet another movie filming? I peered almost 35 floors down to witness what may be one of the largest protests this city has hosted – a sea of white-clad Mexican immigrants and their supporters marching down The Avenue to a rally at Lafayette Square. The sight was amazing.
This will teach me to leave my camera at home while a resident of New New Orleans.
Perhaps the newest members of our city can teach us a thing or two about organization and vocal protest. This after KH and I recently joked that the only thing that would incite New Orleanians to mass revolt is a city ordinance banning smoking in bars. Talk about a fricassee. To be completely fair, the Jazz Funeral for Democracy had many New Orleans liberals taking to the streets, but that gathering had more of an air of resignation than angry demands.
Bush’s remarks on the bilingual aspect of the debate got me thinking of the nature of American immigration as a whole.
President Bush yesterday said “The Star-Spangled Banner” should be sung in English, not Spanish, and condemned plans by some immigrant groups to stage a work protest on Monday to sway the debate over the nation’s immigration laws … [he] told reporters that people who want to be citizens of the United States should learn English and “ought to learn to sing the national anthem in English.”
You first, sir. Anyway …
An immigrant myself, I offer full ideological support to people who arrive in America to work and to make better lives for themselves and their children, illegally or not. In fact, I am one of those super-idealistic freaks who goes so far as to say that American should not be a birthright. Any fool can be born here; it takes the dedicated and hardworking to build America everyday.
That said, I don’t want to sing the national anthem in any language other than English because, in doing so, I find a patriotic bond with other Americans living and dead. Additionally, I feel that the celebration of a particular ethnicity of immigrants plays down the fact that this country thrives on the efforts of many world cultures.
The problems I have with a bilingual nation are two-fold:
1) It is not multilingual. How are the rest of us represented? I speak Tamil, Hindi, Arabic (rusty), French, Sanskrit (somewhat) and Spanish (passing) besides English and am just as American as those citizens who speak predominantly Spanish. I pay taxes, too. Why should the national anthem not be sung in Tamil, say? And while fighting over what languages make it in, we forget that the aim of this exercise is to be American. This leads right into the second point.
2) Seeking equality while maintaining cultural disparity is self-defeating. Of X or Y descent first, American second. It’s the same issue I take with people who say they’re Christian, black or gay first and members of a diverse nation second. Claim it all. The same and the different. Embrace it all and make it your own. An acquaintance remarked that this is a very elitist and “whitey” stance on my part. “That’s only a problem if you’ve pre-defined American-ness as the state of being white, and that’s your problem,” I replied.
However, I am opposed to any law that would prevent Americans from singing their national anthem in whatever language they want at any time they please. My personal preference should not dictate the freedoms of others. That’s America’s problem today. One person’s choice becomes another person’s law. What a crock.
In closing, protest – good, resignation – bad. Bi-cultural nation – bad, American with respect for and decency towards ALL cultures, religions, sexual orientations and jobs – good. Forgetting camera and missing a great “aerial” shot – pretty idiotic.
Viva la revolucion! Qu’ils mangent de le gumbo!
I have always objected to the concept “separate, but equal”. On the other hand, if someone feels better about being an American by singing the anthem in another language, fine. The “melting pot” worked because we did not dither about ethnicity ; if you wanted to get ahead, learn to be part of the mainstream – or at least make sure your children do.
Maybe I’m sheltered, but I have never met an immigrant citizen who did not think of herself or himself as American, including my immigrant parents. I grew up observing them thinking themselves as both American and Irish, and so I don’t see that there’s an inherent conflict between recognizing and appreciating both where you’re from and where you are. Or where your family is from, and where it now is.
The language question is mostly a red herring, I think; every time someone studies language adoption among Spanish-speaking immigrants, they find that they are adopting English quite rapidly. In fact, within a generation or two, they begin to lose Spanish – which is a shame, as it’s a very useful language for a country that does vast amounts of business with its predominantly Spanish-speaking neighbors in the Americas.
I have never met an immigrant citizen who did not think of herself or himself as American
The Indian-American community in this country is rife with such people. They shamelessly drink their 2% milk and state that this nation is awful for polluting the minds of their children, etc. Granted, my generation is less apt to behave the same way, but there is still ethnic cliquiness (if that’s a word) on college campuses and metropolitan areas everywhere.
There are American members of my own family who consider themselves Indian first. And that’s a shame. This is not about recognizing and appreciating both where you’re from and where you are, it’s about conflating white and American. To flesh out the reason for this cultural disparity, this double-standard emanates from an inherent insecurity about not being white and therefore not American.
In my opinion, it was easier for your parents to assimiliate because they are white. Hopefully, we will move away from that definition with time, but then, look at the black community who are still treated as pariahs in parts of “civilized” America.
they begin to lose Spanish
I’m in complete agreement with you that it’s a shame that the native tongue is eventually lost. But, I’m all for them retaining their knowledge of Spanish and learning English and soon. It is the language of commisseration in this nation and worldwide.
Finally, let’s keep our language choices open and not limit it to Spanish. I’m against barring the use of Spanish wherever and whenever, but also am uncomfortable with it being an instated second language. That’s my point.