Almost a year ago pundits and even every day Americans were declaring that we now lived in a “post-racial America.” This was largely based on the result of the 2008 presidential race.
Today I woke to two news items that beg to differ.
Living in the South I’m all too familiar with the first headline. Come to think of it the second one as well. I’ll take up the first this time and leave the second for later.
Before I read the article, “Hotel Owner Makes Workers Change Spanish Names” my first thought was that it sounded like what one of Texas’ compassionate conservative Christians might do or say. Then I read the article and learned that it was indeed a transplanted “Texan.”
It all started to make sense in the twisted, tortured and tormented way that in Texas these things do. Texas Red: a cratered landscape of prisons, deplorable public education, lack of healthcare, and politicians and a majority population intent on keeping it that way
Larry, the Taos hotel owner, allegedly told his employees that they'd need to "shorten" their Hispanic names to something a little more, well, "American."
Hispanics are the majority population in Taos, New Mexico, a fact that apparently escaped the hotel owner’s keen powers of observation. Then again it might be an indication that he’s a product of the state’s less than stellar public education system. Confronting the Graduation Rate Crisis in Texas
It usually comes as a surprise to people when I mention that our republic does not have an “official language.” Wisely, this nation’s founders decided not to declare an official language, their reasons included "a belief in tolerance for linguistic diversity within the population, the economic and social value of foreign language knowledge and citizenry, and a desire not to restrict the linguistic and cultural freedom of those living in the new country."
Over three hundred different languages are spoken in our Nation today. Thirty-two million Americans predominantly speak a language other than English at home.
The majority Hispanic population in Taos has been there for centuries. They didn’t take kindly to the edict. In response to the protests that followed Larry apparently decided that discretion is the better part of valor and put some Spanish language phrases on the hotel’s welcome sign.
Watch the video and let me know what you think.
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