Ruben Navarette on Arnold

From Ruben Navarette’s latest (Oct. 11) column:

As if Mexicans weren’t having a tough enough time in America these days, now they’re being told they don’t speak good enough English by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. What’s Spanish for “How humiliating”? I’m not sure. As a third-generation Mexican American, my Spanish is horrid. And there are millions of Mexican Americans like me, whose parents — having endured discrimination in schools and in the workplace for speaking Spanish in the 1940s and 1950s — raised their kids to speak English only. Even recent immigrants from Mexico can’t escape the power of English. Grandma may be watching her favorite telenovela in the family room, but, in the bedroom down the hall, her grandkids are watching “Ugly Betty” on ABC. You want ugly? Check out the comments Schwarzenegger made last week about Mexicans and assimilation. In response to a reporter’s question, Schwarzenegger said people often ask him the secret of his success. He tells them it requires “that you learn the language, that you learn the history of America … and you have to become part of America.” So far, so good. But then he went for the whole enchilada. “And that is very difficult for some people to do,” said the governor, “especially, I think, for Mexicans, because they are so close to their country here, so they try to stay Mexican but try to be in America.” The Austrian immigrant offered this advice: “What I am saying to the Mexicans is, you’ve got to go and immerse yourself, and assimilate into the American culture, and become part of the American fabric. That is how Americans will embrace you.” I’ll try to keep my temperature down, but the governor’s most recent comments were inaccurate, impolite, inconsistent, imprudent, insincere and incomplete.  Click here for the full Navarette commentary.

KJ