“The politics of español”
Gregory Rodriguez opines in the LA Times that if the Democratic Party was really interested in reaching Latino voters, it would have had Antonio Villaraigosa deliver the Democratic response to the State of the Union in English:
Yet, unlike the adult Latino population at large, which is heavily foreign-born and Spanish-speaking, the Latino electorate is still mostly U.S.-born and, thus, English-speaking. A 2004 study by the Pew Hispanic Center found that 61% of likely Latino voters only view English TV programming, while 28% watch news in both languages. Only 11% watch Spanish-language programming exclusively. That means that on Tuesday, the maximum percentage of the Latino electorate that Villaraigosa probably could have reached was 39%. By contrast, if he had delivered the Democrats’ response on English-language television, he could have potentially reached 89% of likely Latino voters.
It’s difficult to blame Villaraigosa for accepting the party’s offer of a national television platform. Yet the mayor’s Spanish-language address did play into the misconception that Latinos are an undifferentiated — and permanently foreign — mass. Indeed, you have to wonder if Villaraigosa explained to his party’s bosses the nuances of Mexican American linguistic and cultural assimilation. Although the use of Spanish persists longer among Mexican Americans than native languages in most other immigrant groups, the shift to English is inexorable. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, by the third generation 71% of Mexican American children speak only English.
As I have expressed on this site many times, I couldn’t agree more.
