Language policy in national anthem

[Harold F. Schiffman]

 An Anthem's Discordant Notes
Spanish Version of 'Star-Spangled Banner' Draws Strong Reactions

By David Montgomery Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, April 28, 2006;
A01

Oh say can you see -- a la luz de la aurora? The national anthem that once
endured the radical transformation administered by Jimi Hendrix's fuzzed
and frantic Stratocaster now faces an artistic dare at least as extreme:
translation into Spanish. The new take is scheduled to hit the airwaves
today. It's called "Nuestro Himno" -- "Our Anthem" -- and it was recorded
over the past week by Latin pop stars including Ivy Queen, Gloria Trevi,
Carlos Ponce, Tito "El Bambino," Olga Taon and the group Aventura. Joining
and singing in Spanish is Haitian American artist Wyclef Jean.

The different voices contribute lines the way 1985's "We Are the World"
was put together by an ensemble of stars. The national anthem's familiar
melody and structure are preserved, while the rhythms and instrumentation
come straight out of Latin pop. Can "The Star-Spangled Banner," and the
republic for which it stands, survive? Outrage over what's being called
"The Illegal Alien Anthem" is already building in the blogosphere and
among conservative commentators. Timed to debut the week Congress returned
to debate immigration reform, with the country riven by the issue,
"Nuestro Himno" is intended to be an anthem of solidarity for the movement
that has drawn hundreds of thousands of people to march peacefully for
immigrant rights in Washington and cities across the country, says Adam
Kidron, president of Urban Box Office, the New York-based entertainment
company that launched the project.

"It's the one thing everybody has in common, the aspiration to have a
relationship with the United States . . . and also to express gratitude
and patriotism to the United States for providing the opportunity," says
Kidron. The song was being prepared for e-mailing as MP3 packages to
scores of Latino radio stations and other media last night, and Kidron was
calling for stations to play the song simultaneously at 7 Eastern time
this evening. However, the same advance buzz that drew singers to scramble
for inclusion in the recording sessions this week in New York, Miami,
Texas, Mexico, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic has also spurred
critics who say rendering the song in Spanish is a rejection of
assimilation into the United States.

Even some movement supporters are puzzled by the use of Spanish. "Even our
Spanish media are saying, 'Why are we doing this, what are you trying to
do?' " said Pedro Biaggi, the morning host with El Zol (99.1 FM), the most
popular Hispanic radio station in the Washington area. "It's not for us to
be going around singing the national anthem in Spanish. . .  . We don't
want to impose, we don't own the place. . . . We want to be accepted."
Still, Biaggi says he will play "Nuestro Himno" this morning if the song
reaches the station in time. But he will talk about the language issue on
the air and solicit listeners' views. He says he accepts the producers'
explanation that the purpose is to spread the values of the anthem to a
wider audience. He adds he will also play a version of "The Star-Spangled
Banner" in English -- as he aired the Whitney Houston version earlier this
week, when the controversy was beginning to brew.

In the Spanish version, the translation of the first stanza is relatively
faithful to the spirit of the original, though Kidron says the producers
wanted to avoid references to bombs and rockets. Instead, there is "fierce
combat." The translation of the more obscure second stanza is almost a
rewrite, with phrases such as "we are equal, we are brothers." An
alternate version to be released next month includes a rap in English that
never occurred to Francis Scott Key:

	Let's not start a war

	With all these hard workers

	They can't help where they were born

"Nuestro Himno" is as fraught with controversial cultural messages as the
psychedelic "Banner" Hendrix delivered at the height of the Vietnam War.
Pressed on what he was trying to say with his Woodstock performance in
1969, Hendrix replied (according to biographer Charles Cross), "We're all
Americans. . . . It was like 'Go America!' . . . We play it the way the
air is in America today." Now the national anthem is being remade again
according to the way the air is in America, and the people behind "Nuestro
Himno" say the message once more is: We're all Americans. It will be the
lead track on an album about the immigrant experience called "Somos
Americanos," due for release May 16. One dollar from each sale will go to
immigrant rights groups, including the National Capital Immigration
Coalition, which organized the march on the Mall on April 10.

But critics including columnist Michelle Malkin, who coined "The Illegal
Alien Anthem" nickname, say the rendition crosses a line that Hendrix
never stepped over with his instrumental version. Transforming the musical
idiom of "The Star-Spangled Banner" is one thing, argue the skeptics, but
translating the words sends the opposite message: We are not Americans.
"I'm really appalled. . . . We are not a bilingual nation," said George
Taplin, director of the Virginia Chapter of the Minuteman Civil Defense
Corps, part of a national countermovement that emphasizes border control
and tougher enforcement, and objects to public funding for day-laborer
sites. "When people are talking about becoming a part of this country,
they should assimilate to the norm that's already here," Taplin said.
"What we're talking about here is a sovereign nation with our ideals and
our national identity, and that [anthem] is one of the icons of our
nation's identity. I believe it should be in English as it was penned."

Yet, even in English, 61 percent of adults don't know all the words, a
recent Harris poll found. Appealing to such symbols of national identity
to plug into their profound potency is how new movements compete for space
within that identity.  During the rally on the Mall, the immigrants and
their supporters also waved thousands of American flags and recited the
Pledge of Allegiance.  But they didn't translate the pledge into Spanish.
They said it in English. Juan Carlos Ruiz, the general coordinator of the
National Capital Immigration Coalition, said there's not a contradiction.
The pledge was printed phonetically for Spanish speakers, and many
reciting the sounds may not have understood the meaning. Putting the
anthem in Spanish is a way to relay the meaning to people who haven't
learned English yet, Ruiz said.

"It's part of the process to learn English," not a rejection of English,
he said. While critics sketch a nightmare scenario of a Canada-like land
with an anthem sung in two languages, immigrant rights advocates say they
agree learning English is essential. Studies of immigrant families suggest
the process is inevitable: Eighty-two percent to 90 percent of the
children of immigrants prefer English. "The first step to understanding
something is to understand it in the language you understand, and then you
can understand it in another language," said Leo Chavez, director of
Chicano/Latino Studies at the University of California at Irvine. "What
this song represents at this moment is a communal shout, that the dream of
America, which is represented by the song, is their dream, too."

Since its origins as the melody to an English drinking song called "To
Anacreon in Heaven," circa 1780, "The Star-Spangled Banner" has had a
long, strange trip. Key wrote the poem after watching the bombardment of
Fort McHenry in 1814. It became the national anthem in 1931. At least 389
versions have been recorded, according to Allmusic.com, a quick reference
used by musicologists to get a sense of what's on the market. Now that
Hendrix's "Banner" has mellowed into classic rock, it's hard to imagine
that once some considered it disrespectful. The other recordings embrace a
vast musical universe: from Duke Ellington to Dolly Parton to Tiny Tim.
But musicologists cannot name another foreign-language version.

"America is a pluralistic society, but the anthem is a way that we can
express our unity. If that's done in a different language, that doesn't
seem to me personally to be a bad thing," said Michael Blakeslee, deputy
executive director of the National Association for Music Education, which
is leading a National Anthem Project to highlight the song and the school
bands that play it in every style, from mariachi to steel drum. "I assume
the intent is one of making a statement about 'we are a part of this
nation,' and those are wonderful sentiments and a noble intent," said Dan
Sheehy, director of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.

Benigno "Benny" Layton wonders. He's the leader of Los Hermanos Layton, a
band of conjunto- and Tejano-style musicians in Elsa, Tex., 22 miles from
Mexico. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, he recorded a traditional
conjunto version of "The Star-Spangled Banner." It was instrumental. "I'm
a second-generation American," Layton said. "I love my country, and I love
my [Mexican musical] heritage, and I try to keep it alive. But some things
are sacred that you don't do. And translating the national anthem is one
of them."

Staff writer Richard Harrington contributed to this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/27/AR2006042702505_pf.html
 2006 The Washington Post Company