LL-L "Language use" 2005.06.13 (08) [E]

Tue Jun 14 04:28:38 UTC 2005

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L O W L A N D S - L * 13.JUN.2005 (08) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Thomas Byro <greenherring at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language use" 2005.06.13 (05) [E/German/Portuguese/Spanish]

To All;

My problem is not so much with the Spanish language as with the
official favoritism displayed to Spanish speakers and Spanish speakers
only.  This breeds a justified resentment and I can tell you that this
resentment is shared by others, including several Portugese I know.
Portugese are not considered to be "Hispanics" and therefore have to
learn the language of the land like everyone else.  Are they less
worthy as human beings than Spanish speakers?

If I were to consider learning Spanish, it would have to be for a
reason other than making the life of a pampered minority even easier.
I would have to consider if I could not experience greater cultural
richness by investing the time to learn a different language, such as
Russian, for example.

A statement made by former Spanish prime minister Felipe Gonzales fed
my concerns about the Spanish language.  The occasion was Spain's
accession to the Common Market.  In a massive supplement to Scientific
American.  Mr Gonzales said that in the old Spain, the attitude was
"let others invent."  He said that in the new Spain, this was no
longer the case.  If this was true, I had to wonder about the culture
in which such attitudes could prevail. I had to think about the
Inquisition, who murdered people who thought for themselves until
1835.

I have no problem with Chicanos.  The ones I met in Texas were truly
bilingual.  So were people of German decent from the Texas Hill
Country, who were fluent in German, English and Spanish.  The more
languages the better I say.  The system in Texas though seems to work
without one linguistic minority being promoted at the expense of
others.

Tom Byro

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language use

Tom,

Gonzales is a *Spaniard*.  The people we are talking about are *Latin
Americans*, primarily Central Americans, Puerto Ricans and Cubans.
Different creatures, different histories, different attitudes.  Most of them
are "Mestizos" (even though few of them would admit it), some of them
predominantly Native Americans, some of them of African background.  Latin
Americans of purely Spanish descent are far less likely to immigrate to this
country; they enjoy a much better life back home, many of them still
populating the elites.  The native populations of Latin America suffered
terribly under Spanish rule, just as those of North America suffered under
British, French, Spanish and American rule.  Their and their mixed
descendents' attitudes toward Spain are not generally favorable, even though
most of them have Spanish as their first language and recognize their
linguistic bond with Spain (like North Americans recognize their linguistic
bonds with Britain, which is not tantamount to being Anglophile).
Furthermore, among all Latin Americans I have known so far I have never come
across a single linguistic chauvinist.

Immigration from Spain to the post-Spanish-War United States has been
minimal compared with others, also compared with immigration from Portugal
(of which there has been a fair bit in New England and Southern California).
Of those Spaniards that did immigrate there is a large percentage of Basques
and Galicians, and many of them don't exactly consider themselves Spaniards.
People from the Iberian Peninsula are not usually classified as Hispanic in
this country.  (At universities, for instance, they may classify themselves
as Hispanic students if they so wish, but this is not done for them by
default; they are considered European and Caucasian.)  This may seem odd
until you realize that "Hispanic" and "Latin" are just euphemisms for a
cultural-racial category, namely for Spanish-speaking Latin Americans, most
of whom in this country are not of purely European background.

I hardly think that Hispanic people in the United States are a pampered
minority.  Last time I checked, doing unskilled labor and other people's
dirty work for pennies an hour and no benefits did not qualify as pampering.
Doing that, living in poor housing and in mostly dismal metereological and
social climates is probably not exactly their idea of fun either, and they
wouldn't be here had they not escaped from worse and feel obliged to feed
their relatives back home.

Many poor Mexican immigrants' children are severely disadvantaged.  Their
parents may be illegal or undocumented immigrants (which is not the
children's fault), though they themselves are likely to be US citizens by
virtue of having been born here.  Their parents, who come from the poorest
parts of Mexico or Central American countries, have next to no education
even in Spanish.  Most of them have no access to assistance, aid or care.
Even those that are "legit" can get aid only after ten years of legal
residence.  (Bill Clinton allowed that one to pass during his supposed
watch, and when I complained that he had broken his election promise he
wrote back saying that it was a matter of picking one's battles ... Thanks a
lot, Bill!)  Many Mexican farm laborers are getting poisoned by chemical
fertilizers and take the contamination home to their children.  These
children are at severe risk, and most of them do not even get routine
checkups or vaccinations of any sort.  When they are sent to school they are
in an alien world hearing gobbledigook and having missed the curriculum boat
by the time they begin to understand the gobbledigook. Giving them a bit of
help does not amount to pampering in my book.  By the time they are young
adults, they are more likely than most other populations to join the
military, enticed by pay and education, and then they are more likely to be
crippled or killed when their president instigates a war or two.

No, I don't see a lot of pampering action around here ... well, certainly no
pampering of ethnic and linguistic minorities.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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