Barack Obama is one lucky dude. Every time he makes a gaffe, someone makes a bigger one to save the him from himself. But the candidate’s latest opining on our Spanish language skills was a lot more important to our futures than what Jesse Jackson (not running for president for once) did or didn’t say. (Does Obama speak Spanish? Yo no se, pero creo que no. And judging from the way he pronounced “Merci, beaucoup!” he’s no Racine scholar either.)
Nevertheless, the candidate has expounded on the question of Americans learning languages – or should I say Spanish, because that seems the only applicable language here. Obama, whoring for the Hispanic vote like the good “new” politician he is, put forth the view that all us gringos should learn español, while paying almost no heed to the vastly more important necessity that immigrants learn English. He waved that off with an of course they would do that. Why even consider that a problem?
If Obama really did speak Spanish, he would know what nonsense that was. I can handle the language. at least haltingly, and find myself speaking it as often as three times a week here in Los Angeles because my interlocutor can’t speak English. This is great for me–I love to practice–but lousy for them. They’re trapped on a treadmill. Anyone who has lived in Southern California for any period of time knows there is a huge (and growing) population that speaks only Spanish and, because they are cosseted in their own communities, has little impetus to change. This is of course dreadful for those people, almost always consigning them to the lowest rungs of society in terms of jobs and education. It also enhances the identity politics rife in our country under the fake guise of reactionary multi-culturalism.
But the “progressive” Obama declares the real problem is Americans who should be learning Spanish. Kaus has it right calling Barack a member of the Scarsdale bien pensant. But, perhaps more appropriate in this instance, would be, as they say in Mexico, “Qué cabrón más distinguido!“ (More or less, “What a distinguished asshole!”)
Who would have thought America’s first black president would be a character out of Moliere’s Les Précieuses Ridicules? [Hey, enough with these languages.-ed. You're right.]
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34 Comments
1. Mareyel:Roger, spot on. I have long believed that our society’s lack of insistence that all new comers learn the English language has held them down and consigned them to perennial low paying, entry-level jobs. And Obama, the suffering elitist that he is, wants US to learn a foreign language…one that he himself cannot speak and has no need to. And McCain slumbers on. This is a watershed election that we will look back on and shudder. Unless we’ve been nuked into submission.
Jul 11, 2008 - 7:29 am 2. Lightnin' Hopkins:Halp us Missyewerr La Bomba, pour fayvor, wee R stoopid aind unkulchurred!
Jul 11, 2008 - 7:46 am 3. Captain Hate:Barry barely speaks English. After his “Dr Phil” zinger, which was spot-on, he comes up with the need to “solve the economy”. WTF!! Again, Harvard must be so proud.
Jul 11, 2008 - 7:58 am 4. Anita Hope:The fault goes even further and we need to find out why our public educational institutions are on their knees giving in to all demands for their languages to be taught in schools where they live. If anything these
Jul 11, 2008 - 8:12 am 5. Lem:languages should be stopped so their children will be forced into speaking the American language for at least 6 to 8 hours a day. We are helping to continue this distruction of being American, which is why they keep coming into our country and if Obama is not as educated to this one problem as we are made to believe then we had better investigate and question further why he should be made PRESIDENT?
Does his wife speak spanish and are their children being taught spanish now, since we know an early age for learning any foreign language is the best time. I am worried about the youth being denied course that should be taught in our public schoo’s and are not. A foreign language should be an after school elective or out of school choice done privately and financed by the parent’s. Teaching a language in school has become a political game play and thus needs to be treated politicaly and kept out of public education, WE CAN NOT AFFORD TO CONTINUE AND IF OBAMA IS BLIND TO OPENING PANDORA’S BOX TO THE LANGUAGE PROBLEM HE IS FAILING NOT ONLY AMERICA BUT THE CHILDREN OF ALL FOREIGN PEOPLE COMING INTO OUR COUNTRY FOR A BETTER WAY OF LIFE FOR THEMSELVES AND THEIR CHILDREN.
Obama apparently doesn’t know that Spanish is highly colloquialized.
Just what we need, more people bitterly “clinging”
Jul 11, 2008 - 8:51 am 6. Lem:Obama es un pendejo.
Jul 11, 2008 - 9:14 am 7. Colette:How about Obama encouraging some Americans to learn Arabic so we can get some decent intelligence?
Jul 11, 2008 - 9:27 am 8. Charlie (Colorado):If Spanish is all that important, how come el Caudillo doesn’t speak it, and if its a sign of intellectual distinction, what do we make of the fact that Bush does?
Jul 11, 2008 - 9:55 am 9. Charlie (Colorado):Anita, sei nicht verrückt.
Jul 11, 2008 - 9:58 am 10. David Thomson:“…huge (and growing) population that speaks only Spanish and, because they are cosseted in their own communities, has little impetus to change.”
Mark Krikorian contends that modern technology has only made matters worse. In the early 1900s an immigrant was not able to listen to radio and TV broadcasts in their own language. It behooved them to learn English as quickly as possible. Also, Mexicans are often extremely anti-intellectual. They were born and raised within a culture indifferent towards learning. Richard Rodriguez has been writing about this sad situation for well over two decades. It’s a subject few want to discuss.
Jul 11, 2008 - 10:44 am 11. David:A Puerto Rican student of mine and a Panamania (?) where having a lot of fun looking at various colloquel phrases, the best was one which in PR means to serve, in Panama it means to service (think about it).
Jul 11, 2008 - 11:01 am 12. Lem:Chevy Nova did sell well supposedly because No-va could be translated as Chevy ‘not going’
Obama nova
Jul 11, 2008 - 12:32 pm 13. Lem:I meant to say – Chevy Nova did not sell well….
Jul 11, 2008 - 12:35 pm 14. ricpic:The Mexicans can’t learn english? How about, the Mexicans won’t learn english.
Jul 11, 2008 - 3:13 pm 15. Anita Hope:Charlie in Colardo, translated means what?
Jul 11, 2008 - 3:49 pm 16. Anita Hope:Charlie, Please speak ” ENGLISH “, THANK YOU.
Jul 11, 2008 - 4:01 pm 17. LSD:Wasn’t the original question with regard to establishing english as the official language? (Which is very different from advocating or discouraging people from learning foreign languages.)
It’s ironic that the Europeans Obama admires have chosen english as the official language of the EU.
Jul 11, 2008 - 4:10 pm 18. Terrye:I used to listen to the stories my father in law would tell me about German town in Cincinnati back in the days of the Great Depression. He was 9 years old before they spoke English in school. If they had not done that he would not have become a chemical engineer.
There has always been a lag time between people coming here and people learning the language, but they did eventually learn it. So yeah, that is a priority. In fact I think that young African Americans have been held back by their poor language skills too.
Jul 11, 2008 - 4:17 pm 19. Terrye:ricpic:
Used to it was not unusual for people coming to the United States to not speak the language when they got here or even afterward. China town, little Italy and other enclaves made it easy for immigrants to get by. But as a general rule, their children did learn. Now it seems even the second generation is not always able to speak fluent English.
Jul 11, 2008 - 4:20 pm 20. Lem:Obama’s pandering really speaks about what Bush 41 called the soft bigotry of low expectations.
To here Rovarendo Jesse tell it –
Obama is talking down to spanish folks… I’m going to cut his güevos
Jul 11, 2008 - 8:09 pm 21. Jay:out
“How about Obama encouraging some Americans to learn Arabic so we can get some decent intelligence?”
Because then the right would be fanning the “Muslim” rumors again (while passive-aggressive GOP converts like Roger looked on silently).
It’s amazing how little it takes to turn a comment thread into a cesspool. Roger pulls the “distinguished asshole” line (while conveniently hiding the fact that he is Ivy-League educated), then a bit down the thread, the word, “pendejo” (a noun I usually reserve for Che Guevara and his overwhelmingly white suburban folllowers) is dropped. I don’t mind any of this. The thing is that Roger moaned and cried about “incivility” for months when someone dared to give Joe Lieberman a fight in a senate primary. Now, either Simon can’t live up to his own lofty standards, or he doesn’t want to. Since it is election season and his candidate is trailing (why he doesn’t just go volunteer to brew coffee at the McCain blog HQ is beyond me), I suspect it is the latter.
By the way, there was an article in Foreign Affairs a couple of years back about the rise of jihadism in Latin America (Spanish speakers with Jihadist sympathies). If ever that shitstorm rolls into the United States, you all will rue your collective hissy-fit over the suggestion that an education in Spanish might just matter.
Also, let’s not get into the still-raging drug war. If you don’t think we need a fleet of DEA agents fluent in Spanish, you are fooling yourselves. Heck, what if Crystal Meth does to the Latino community what it has done to the Pacific Northwest?
All this far outwighs the damage done by a non-violent immigrant slow to learn “the language” I would add, in parting, that when someone committs terrorism or distributes a drug as awful as meth, I don’t think it has anything to do with not knowing “the language”; I chalk crimes of that nature up to deep, psychotic nihilism, and I would deny til my death any excuse such a vile offender might think they had.
Jul 11, 2008 - 9:18 pm 22. Colette:I think everyone should learn more than one language, but I also think everyone should be able to communicate coherently in their native language. And be able to comprehend irony. Then there’s Jay.
Jul 11, 2008 - 10:20 pm 23. Captain Hate:“It’s amazing how little it takes to turn a comment thread into a cesspool.”
Oh the humanity. Why don’t you form your own little dipshit blog where you can spew your inanities du jour instead of trolling around like a 13 year old pissed off because he’s been locked out of online porn sites? I promise to leave you alone.
Jul 12, 2008 - 3:41 am 24. Terrye:Jay:
You are over reacting.
Jul 12, 2008 - 4:35 am 25. Ralph Woods:Every time the elitist portion of Obama opens his mouth to make statements such as Americans learning Spanish and that we are an embarrasment to the world, I think what an opening for McCain. But then McCain shoots himself in the foot Yosemite Sam style going off on campaign ads he hasn’t seen or mocking truthful remarks by Senator Gramm.
Jul 12, 2008 - 7:50 am 26. Lem:“then a bit down the thread, the word, “pendejo”.
It was a public declaration, that comment was not be helpful.
For any harm or hurt that this comment may have caused, I apologize.
My support for this blog is wide, deep and unequivocal
Jul 12, 2008 - 8:48 am 27. glenn:First, for Mr. Obama, I speak a smattering of three languages besides English. With that out of the way, two points. 1. English is not only the national language of the US, it is the business lancuage of the planet, without good English the world is a much smaller place for those who don’t speak it. 2. Lots of folks in Mr. Obamas’ class like it that way because it limits the competition that smart Latinos provide their kids. And it keeps the wages of domestic help down.
Jul 12, 2008 - 11:02 am 28. Grammarsquad:Try reading Michelle Obama’s thesis. We can’t even teach Princeton undergrads how to compose essays in proper English.
Jul 12, 2008 - 12:41 pm 29. Mark Van Wagoner:What an unctuous sycophant. Translate that! Ooops, se me ha caído el pendejo.
Jul 12, 2008 - 4:09 pm 30. pepe:educado in spanish means you have social graces or manners. con titulo means you have a college degree. obama es un pendejo con titulo, pero es muy educado. ricpic you are wrong about mexicans not speaking english, its tough for people with a 6th grade education to get into learning a new language. the next generation will learn.
Jul 12, 2008 - 5:10 pm 31. Good Ole Charlie:Hey guys, given what going on there, how about Mandarin?
Jul 12, 2008 - 7:48 pm 32. Roger L Simon:My charter school is experimenting with an two year cycle of Mandarin, including four weeks of immersion in China. Last year I lead a pilot group of three 10th and 11th graders to China.
It worked: they found the spoken Mandarin not that hard, although memorization of characters was tough. But they were flexible enough and dedicated enough they pulled it out. Plus having had an adventure of a lifetime.
Two of the guys are going back with me and my wife this fall. And pushing on…
Kids will meet a challenge and take advantage of it. Which is more than some adults will.
The High School ages are a great time to learn a new language. Any language…
And so local high schools drop all languages except Spanish: it’s the school boards and the administrations that are the fools….
Couldn’t agree more, Good Ole Charlie. Asian languages are the wave of the future. I wish I knew one. I’ve made some perfunctory passes at Japanese before me trips over there, but the language doesn’t seem to take in my aging brain — other than totomo oishi (totally delicious), which seems to work well when thanking the sushi chef. I am going to make another pass at it though. Has anybody had any luck with Rosetta Stone?
Jul 12, 2008 - 8:11 pm 33. Good Ole Charlie:Roger:
Thanks for the agreement. Well into our Social Security Collection Time, my wife and I took some local Chinese lessons from a friend (native of Beijing) and looked into DVD courses.
We didn’t like Rosetta Stone: too glitzy and not well thought out. We finally found an outfit called Fluenz: seemed to be adequate and a good place to start.
However, the language school we are associated with in China made a BIG difference. Four weeks with the kids living with a Chinese family, two hours Monday – Friday with an individual tutor, one hour “Culture” M – F, plus regular assignments from their US (our) school. A 8:00am to 5:00pm schedule, plus a “culture tour” on Saturday. This experience was not a vacation, but a serious proposition.
Two factors helped: we were not in Beijing, but in a “small city” of nine million, Shijiazhuang, Hebei.
Second, in their Chinese Family, there was a same sex Chinese kid studying English: a great idea. Most of our people found themselves speaking English in the morning and Chinese in the afternoon or something like that.
BTW, due to relative heights, our guys were in demand for pick-up basketball games. The girls became experts on latest dress and shopping techniques with their step-sisters.
My wife and I followed the same schedule as the kids, except our tutor took us both together. Hard work for old farts, but we did learn a lot: taxi drivers understood me, saleswomen understood her, and we both could chat with curious Chinese who stared and stared and stared…
As in the case of the kids, an experience of a lifetime. So we go back with some of the originals for a second experience and more language. And eight new students, spread out over grade 9 to 12.
Zai Jian, Roger
Jul 12, 2008 - 9:54 pm 34. ray_g:“Wasn’t the original question with regard to establishing english as the official language?”
Yes, and the whole ‘Americans should learn other languages’ thing was a (not so) clever way of avoiding that question. Or he totally missed the point. I’m not sure which.
Jul 14, 2008 - 4:43 pm