Why I'm learning Spanish

A brightly coloured, meshed hammock caught my eye recently as I strolled by the Potomac River across from Washington, DC. Stitched on the hammock in big letters was `El Salvador', apparently the homeland of its owners.

That hammock struck me as symbolic of the cultural revolution underway in America. The new US census shows that for the first time Hispanics constitute the largest minority in the US, slightly ahead of African-Americans. And their numbers continue to rise. So much so that Time magazine did a recent blockbuster cover story, `Welcome to Amexica'.

Amexica was the name applied to the US-Mexican borderland which stretches from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. `It is often said the border is its own country, Amexica, neither Mexican nor American,' Time staffer Nancy Gibbs wrote. Cities and towns on both sides of the border teem with more and more people. This growth has been fuelled by the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico. Some communities straddling the border have more in common with each other, apparently, than with their respective countries.

El Paso, Texas, is trying to see how it can help avert a possible water-shortage facing its cross-border neighbour, Juarez, Mexico. Time quotes Mayor Betty Flores of Laredo, Texas, as saying, `The border is not where the US stops and Mexico begins. It's where the US blends into Mexico.'

But if 58 per cent of Hispanics in the United States are from Mexico, millions more are from other countries. The one thing they have in common is the Spanish language, which you hear increasingly not only in major cities such as Washington, New York and Los Angeles, but also in smaller cities and towns. A friend from a suburban area of mid-western Cincinnati tells me she hears Spanish in her neighbourhood now. I hear it all the time in my high-rise apartment building in suburban Washington.

So what does it all mean? Most of all it presents many Americans with not only the challenge but also the invitation to accept that our nation will no longer be the one we knew growing up. Along with increasing numbers of Asians and others from ethnic minorities, Latinos make special contributions to the cultural mix. They bring a warmth of heart and personality quickly evident if you speak even a few words in their language. But many Americans look askance at the immigrant tide. They would like to keep things as they are or, preferably, as they were.

A recent series in The Washington Post explored the Latino cultural factors in a posh suburban high school. It found many Hispanics felt left out. For example, Latino girls were not invited to join a group of their peers who met weekly to view a popular TV show. Such feelings of exclusion, as African-Americans know well, can have devastating effects.

For long-time Americans such as me, then, a big question is whether and to what extent we will welcome these men, women and children from Latin America. Mexico's new President, Vicente Fox, visualizes a day when the US-Mexican border is open for unfettered travel both ways. That's unlikely anytime soon, and may never happen. But the tide will almost certainly continue to rise no matter what barriers go up.

Immigration issues, fed mainly by the flow of illegals, are high on the nation's agenda. They defy easy answers. But one thing many of us can do is try harder to learn the Hispanics' language and culture even as they struggle to learn English and blend into American life. That is why I recently decided to learn Spanish.

COPYRIGHT 2001 For a Change
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning