At present we are losing our country, but our fate is in our hands

Mark E. writes:

That the leading Republican candidates are participating in a Spanish language debate [“Really terrible news”] is indeed terrible news. What is one to do? I don’t even think I am such a “traditionalist.” How can people just watch this go on and not feel at all disturbed by it?

From my experience in pointing out this surge of Spanish language translations being put on every product and sign and brochure, it seems that people just don’t see anything wrong with it.

Last summer I went to a Mets game, for the first time in a long time. The game programs at Shea Stadium now include Spanish translations of everything—all the headings, positions, etc. So, for one thing, the page is just jammed with text now, with the English and Spanish words and phrases being placed next to each other in the same lines, so it is one big long line of text separated by a slash. What I find particularly egregious is that surely no Hispanic baseball fan doesn’t know all the English terminology already. They are not even real Spanish-language words, since they are almost all “Spanglish” or transliterations from English. (beisbol, honrun)

I was told that the Mets general manager has aimed the team’s marketing efforts at making the Mets America’s number one Hispanic-oriented team.

When I, uh, demurred at the wonderfulness of all this, my concerns were met with non-comprehension by my companions, to put it mildly. And these are not liberal Democrats.

It was, “Oh, but you see, there is a big Spanish-speaking market in NYC area, so this is just supply and demand. I don’t make judgments about market decisions.” (“OK, so why is there such a big Spanish-speaking market in NYC that a major league baseball team is redefining itself to capture it?”)

Or, “Oh, but it’s no different than all the earlier immigration by other groups, who then assimilated.” (“This is not assimilation. This is Major League Baseball promoting non-assimilation.”)

Or, “Well, it just makes them feel more comfortable. What’s wrong with that?” (“If you went to a soccer game in Mexico—or in France—would you expect the game programs to be translated into English? Would you ever say that it made you ‘uncomfortable’ that they were not? OK, so what is this ‘comfort’ you are talking about, when you would have no such expectation yourself were you the foreigner in another country?”)

And what makes all this worse, as I say—again, this point for some reason never being comprehended by any to whom I make it—is that all this Spanish translation is in most cases totally unnecessary for any Spanish-speaking person who has been in the US more than 10 minutes. If you went to another country for an extended period of time, how long would it take you to learn basic words relating to the automatic teller machine, road signs, food, warning signs, etc.?

And why does no one see the ridiculous folly of replacing English, a very efficient and flexible language, with Spanish, a far more inefficient and less flexible one? (The writer Jorge Luis Borges praised these qualities of the English language over his own native Spanish.)

How is it that even “conservative” (i.e., “right-liberal”) people can’t see that their own language has a particular intellectual, practical and historical character, that is not “equal” or interchangeable with others?

LA replies:

Only collective action can make a difference. These decisions take place in a vacuum, as you described. It’s clear that there’s no one who even wants or needs it that much. It’s more of an adjustment to the perceived Zeitgeist. So long as there’s no counterforce pushing back it will just continue. If there’s a counterforce, it will stop. Look at what just happened in New York State. Gov. Spitzer thought he’d push through his plan to give illegal aliens drivers licenses. He was supremely arrogant about it and expressed contempt toward anyone who didn’t like the idea . But there was a virtual revolt by much of the political establishment of the state that went on for weeks, covered daily in the New York Post. At one point even sopme motor vehicle officlals announced that if Spitzer went ahead with the plan, they would obey it and give illegals licenses but that they would also report the same illegals to federal authorities. Finally, overwhelmed and bleeding from the political damage he had brought on himself, Spitzer had to drop the plan, which he did this past week. On a much bigger scale, I don’t need to tell the story of what happened to the Bush-McCain-Kennedy immigration bill last spring. If even a couple of hundred people called and wrote letters to the Mets organization complaining about these bilingual game programs the Mets would drop it. If a couple of hundred calls were not enough, a couple of thousand would surely be enough.

It’s the same with this Spanish language presidential debate. Roy Beck’s organization can generate tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of phone calls to Congress about a bad immigration bill. There is no organization that can do that or even a fraction of that regarding a Spanish-language presidential debate or a bilingual baseball program or a multicultural curriculum plan. And that is what is needed.

Terry Morris writes:

I agree with you that we should inundate any organization pushing for the hispanicizing of America with calls, emails, letters, whatever. Several years ago I was watching C-SPAN 2 where our illustrious Senators were having a debate about … something Hispanic, when one of my Senators took the floor, gave a couple sentence entry in English, then proceeded to give a lengthy speech in Spanish—ON THE FLOOR OF THE UNITED STATES SENATE! I don’t know what he said and I don’t care. What I do know is that I couldn’t understand one word of what he said out of twenty, if that many. Why he chose to address the Senate in a foreign language, I have no idea. But I turned rage to action, immediately firing off several emails to his office informing him of my severe displeasure. And I think many other people from my State must have done the same thing. This same individual was very actively involved in the recent killing of the Senate Amnesty bill.

Ray G. writes:

Yes, I agree with Mark E.’s thoughts on the pervasiveness of Spanish language today, it depresses me. Other immigrant groups were asked and learn English upon reaching our shores but no, apparently it’s too “mean spirited” to ask Latinos that today. It was done in the past because it made (and makes) more sense—it’s less expensive than printing everything in multiple languages plus, it helps build cohesiveness to the nation and it’s citizens. Doubly amazing since a great many Latino immigrants are in fact, illegal aliens.

Unless things change soon, we will be a true, bilingual nation lnsoon. Just about every politician, just about every newspaper, television program, radio stations, internet site, etc. has gone bilingual now.

Dimitri K. writes:

Regarding translations. This summer a friend of mine flew to a small local airport in central California, of which I forgot the name. There were no translations at all. I mean, there were no translation into English, all announcements were made in Spanish. They translated into English by request only.

Charles B. writes:

The White House website—la Casa Blanca.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 18, 2007 01:52 AM | Send