Regarding the singing of the National Anthem in languages other than English:
- I feel strongly that a strength of the US is e pluribus unum, out of many one. Call me an assimilationist — I think we are strongest, show the most “hybrid vigor,” when we not only welcome new cultures and new ideas, but bring them into the mainstream, use them to forge a new identity. I don’t care for folks trying to be a nation within a nation, any more than I care for the ghettoization of some groups by the majority population. In isolation we are weak; as a whole we are strong.
Which is a long-winded way of saying that, yes, I do think that folks who come here should learn English and should be both welcomed into the population and expected to be come a part of it.
- Unfortunately, the above is difficult to express strongly, because it’s difficult to distinguish from a “furriners go home, or at least be quiet little trogs and let the current status quo continiue to reign.” It is different, but is too similar to the arguments used by xenophobes.
- Heck, I have no problem with people listening to the National Anthem (or the Pledge of Allegiance, or whatever) in translation. Beats not reading/singing them at all.
- That said, I’d hope that would be a transition for most people, not a final destination.
Or, put another way, were I to emigrate to a non-English-speaking country, I would do my darnedest to learn the language. I might speak English at home, and I might appreciate folks outside the home who could speak to me in English, but I wouldn’t expect things to be in English. I might rely or associate more with the English-speaking community in that country, but, again, I would have a goal to learn the native language as soon and as well as possible.
But that’s just me.
BoingBoing notes a few interesting items, including the 1919 Spanish-language version of the Star Spangled Banner from the Library of Congress pictured above, and this US State Department rendition of four different Spanish versions.
Of course, it’s one thing to publish something for foreign consumption, vs. the idea, perhaps, of folks at Hispanic events in this country singing a Spanish SSB.
Still, goofiness.
Les points to articles describing a number of occasions where either Bush has joined in singing the Star Spangled Banner in Spanish, or else stood by at some dreary ceremony (e.g., his inauguration) where it was sung in Spanish. Nice.
Though it may have been “America the Beautiful” at the inauguration en espanol, not the “Star Spangled Banner.” Still, that qualifies as a “statement of national unity” under Lamar Alexander’s congressional resolution. And as Les puts it.