This language thing really Pisses me off!
Of all the things one can bag our future Justice about, this is the one thing that really drives me crazy. Even slightly misworded statements that can be made to sound inflammatory - or even ragging on food that many people think is "gross" - doesn't piss me off nearly as much as the Repub cracking on Ms. Sotomayor and the fact it seems that Spanish was her first language as a child.
Maybe its because I'm the kid of Chinese immigrants and I've seen how hard my parents worked to get their english as square as possible. But its just absolutely aggravating to see pundits try to score points because the woman was born in a Spanish speaking home.
I was just at the Dallas Farmers Market a few months ago and at the ice cream stand I saw a hispanic couple buying ice cream for their kid from a hispanic teenager. Guess what language they were speaking between the four of them? At the time I thought it was a interesting and touching moment of american assimilation that would especially make even right-wingers proud -- but I guess not since its now painfully obvious that its their existence and not their language skills that drives conservatives to conniptions.
Maybe its because I'm the kid of Chinese immigrants and I've seen how hard my parents worked to get their english as square as possible. But its just absolutely aggravating to see pundits try to score points because the woman was born in a Spanish speaking home.
I was just at the Dallas Farmers Market a few months ago and at the ice cream stand I saw a hispanic couple buying ice cream for their kid from a hispanic teenager. Guess what language they were speaking between the four of them? At the time I thought it was a interesting and touching moment of american assimilation that would especially make even right-wingers proud -- but I guess not since its now painfully obvious that its their existence and not their language skills that drives conservatives to conniptions.
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Reactionaries, not conservatives.
Having someone brown in the White House is pissing off lots of people. Heads exploding daily.
June 2, 2009 2:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
I ditto TomW on this. There are humane conservatives out there.
Good post
June 2, 2009 2:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Who?
June 3, 2009 10:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Who?
June 3, 2009 10:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
I have been slightly assimilated to the Spanish language. I try--just because I know it pisses some people off--to speak Spanish with Spanish speaking people.
It if fun to play in that undefined area of conversation between two or more people with different mother tongues. This is where there has to be some sort of understanding beyond language.
June 2, 2009 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Aayaa. Odeimin dekaag ningo gwaaba.
(One scoop strawberry ice cream, please.) (Ojibwe)
:o)
June 2, 2009 4:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ms. Sotomayer: Different language. Same species.
Republicans: Same language. Different species.
June 2, 2009 6:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sounds like vaguely like something Churchill once said about Americans and Brits.
June 3, 2009 1:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here's some context: http://thinkprogress.org/2009/06/01/buchanan-sotomayor-english/
What an ass.
June 2, 2009 6:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
My aunt was sent home from schol when she went to nursery school. They thought she was mentally challenged. The teacher said she was having trouble with speech. MY grandparents informed them she spoke just fine Ukrainian for a five year old. She went on to work in the manager's office for GM. Her husband, a fellow son of a Ukrainian, fought in WWII...for US!!!
What's the problem with the Reich? They are mentally lazy causing enormous ignorance and feel if they are certain about an answer, then it must be the right answer. They have a support group in the GOP encouraging their belief they are right while the rest of the world wonders why they can't get it straight, but "everyone" they know agrees with them. See how it works? They were so sure they knew what "everyone" was thinking without actually asking anyone outside their circle jerk.
June 2, 2009 6:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sotomayor graduated from a Catholic high school in the Bronx lacking the language skills she needed to succeed in college. To me, that says more about Catholic schools than it does about her or her Spanish speaking background.
June 2, 2009 10:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
An American appellate judge has one tool to persuade others to his or her view of the law and to express that view in a decision -- the English language.
A reading of Sotomayor's past decisions should tell us if she has command of rhetorical, semantic and stylistic English adequate to fulfill her judicial function? No benefit is served in delving into the history of how she obtained that mastery.
June 3, 2009 9:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
In the early 70's, I shared an apartment with a fellow Army Sargeant. His parents were born in Mexico, but had immigrated before he was born. He was raised in San Francisco. Because they were convinced that 'assimilation' was the absolute, no Spanish was spoken in their home and he was not allowed to take classes in the language.
We never really discussed it, but can you imagine the perspective of someone named Guajardo being in a restaurant in El Paso Texas (90% Hispanic) in 1972 and having to rely on a white boy to translate for him?
June 3, 2009 12:23 PM | Reply | Permalink