The year of candidates-speaking-Spanish. But will they forget it after the test?

[Dennis Baron]

There's a new post on the Web of Language:

The year of candidates-speaking-Spanish. But will they forget it  
after the test?

One of the remarkable things about the long run-up to the 2008  
presidential election is the number of candidates who are speaking  
Spanish in public.

Mitt Romney tells voters in Miami, “Venceramos.” John McCain says  
“Gracias” on CNN. Michael Bloomberg, Chris Dodd (a fluent Spanish  
speaker), Barack Obama, and Bill Richardson (who actually is half  
Mexican) are turning on their Spanish whenever they can find an open  
mike. Dennis Kucinich showed his minimal Spanish in a 2003 debate.  
And while John Edwards admitted on the Spanish cable network  
Univisíon in 2004 that his Spanish is “not good,” that interview was  
broadcast in Spanish.

Newt Gingrich, who condemns bilingual education because English can  
only be learned through total immersion, announced on YouTube in  
broken Spanish that he’s taking Spanish lessons twice a week.  
Apparently he’s too busy holding down a full-time job as a possible  
presidential candidate to try the immersion method, though he  
recommends it for our children.

And even George Bush, who insisted that anyone living in the United  
States must learn to sing the Star-Spangled Banner in English, sang  
patriotic songs in Spanish during his presidential campaigns.

...

But just because the other candidates openly speak Spanish doesn’t  
mean they think that other Americans should speak it too. Newt  
Gingrich seems to think it’s the language of the ghetto. Some of the  
candidates are calling for tighter border control, in Spanish. Some  
want English on everybody’s lips, and they say so in Spanish. Because  
Spanish, for them, is a means to an end: election. ...

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Best,

D

Dennis Baron
Professor of English and Linguistics
Department of English
University of Illinois
608 S. Wright St.
Urbana, IL 61801

office: 217-244-0568
fax: 217-333-4321

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