Spanish Pledge of Allegiance? Oy vey, can you see, it's deja vu all over again.

[Dennis Baron]

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Spanish Pledge of Allegiance?  Oy vey, can you see, it's deja vu all  
over again.

José Velasquez immigrated from El Salvador to North Carolina six  
years ago, learned to speak English fluently, and did so well in his  
studies that he graduated early from high school last month.  José  
eventually hopes to join the police force, and he was profiled last  
year in the Charlotte Observer as an example of the American dream.   
But when he was asked to lead the Garinger High School graduation in  
the Pledge of Allegiance, first in English, and then again in Spanish  
for the benefit of Spanish-speaking parents in the audience,  
Velasquez rekindled a debate over the appropriate language of  
patriotism that first flared up last spring when promoters released a  
controversial recording of the “Star-Spangled Banner” in Spanish. ...  
The Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, an  
American Baptist minister and socialist who worked among the poor and  
probably wasn’t named after Francis Scott Key.  Bellamy’s salute was  
intended to replace an earlier one written by a certain Col. Balch  
which pledges loyalty to an explicitly god-fearing, English-speaking  
nation: "We give our heads and our hearts to God and our country; one  
country, one language, one Flag.” ...Interestingly, Bellamy drops  
both monotheism and monolingualism from his own pledge of allegiance,  
leading one to suspect that the author might not object to having his  
words translated into the languages of the immigrants he worked  
among. ...

read it all on the Web of Language

Best,

Dennis


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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