Say Anything Blog

A trivial bit of pandering by politicians wishing to throw a bone to a growing racial demographic with a disturbing underlying theme.

MIAMI (AFP) — Eight Democratic presidential hopefuls on Sunday are to stage the first-ever televised Spanish language debate in a bid to garner votes from the rapidly growing bloc of Hispanic voters in the United States.

The candidates—only two of whom are fluent Spanish speakers—are not expected to answer questions in Spanish but their responses will be simultaneously translated for the live broadcast on the Univision network.

“The candidates will be speaking to the fastest-growing segment of American society. It’s a sign of respect,” said Univision anchor Maria Elena Salinas who will co-moderate the debate along with colleague Jorge Ramos.

She and Ramos will ask questions in Spanish, and the candidates, wearing UN-style earpieces, will hear a translation in English.

I’m no xenophobe.  I think immigration is a wonderful thing for America, and would point out that one way to ease the amount of illegal immigration at the border would be to allow more legal immigration.  But one thing I’ve always held to be true is that in order for America to remain the great society it has become is for those who come here to integrate into our way of life.

The “human rights” crowd on the left talks about this a lot (though their take on it is a bit different than mine).  They talk about inclusion.  Unity.  Everyone working together.  And those are all things we should strive for, but one thing that keeps us from being united and inclusive are cultural barriers, with language differences being one of the most basic of those barriers.

Remember that America became America not by being Mexico, Cuba, France or England.  America became America by being...American.  And when we accept new people into our country we should expect them to become American as well (while simultaneously preserving their heritage, obviously).  But how do immigrants integrate with our society when they don’t, or won’t, speak the language all Americans speak?

They can’t.  There’s always going to be a barrier there until they do speak our language, and catering to those who don’t or won’t speak our language only reinforces that barrier.  And that’s what the Democrats are doing with this debate.  Reinforcing a cultural barrier between America’s Hispanic population and the rest of the country.

Now that probably goes hand-in-hand with their strategy as liberals live dividing Americans up into victim groups so that we can all be pandered to according to our cultural or racial background, but for people truly interested in a strong and united America it’s a dangerous thing.