a hurricane of yuck

I had to respond to this email that was sent by one of my family members because I really felt the need to educate and enlighten. The whole idea of people being up in arms about people speaking non-English languages and wanting to sing the national anthem in Spanish just really irks me. Here is my email response:


I don't usually do this but this sort of thing just kinda bugs me. Sorry _____! It's nothing personal and you know I love you dearly. Once upon a time our families were all immigrants and they brought a great deal of their culture and language and heritage with them. My family came from England, France, Germany and Ireland (talk about internal conflict!). Much of what we see in America as popular culture these days derived from something in another country.


Unless we are prepared to speak the language and follow the customs of the Tsalagi, the Dine, the Abenaki, the Lakota or any of the other First Nations that originally called this land home (or go back to our ancestral lands if we do not wish to follow those customs), we should be accepting and tolerant. This is a whole wide big world we live in with lots of room for us all to live peacefully and get along. If you don't like that someone is speaking a language you don't understand, learn the language! I did. I find it sad that most developed, "civilized" nations in the world REQUIRE school children to learn multiple languages yet we in America seem to lack that aspect of civilized society. We are stuck on this flawed ideal of being a one-language nation.

In the words of the Lakota: Mitakuye Oyasin! (We Are All Related)