Mexican “countries” as ridiculous a nativist thought as speaking “Mexican”

I remember once being in a conversation with my peers in school about exactly what people in Mexico spoke. As in did we speak Mexican?

THE controversial moment of nonsense

And didn’t we realize we had no right to question how ridiculous that thought was. Because, after all, only people in Spain spoke Spanish!

NOW BEFORE GOING further, I should point out that I was all of 7 years old when this happened. The “peers” I refer to were my fellow schoolmates and my parents had moved to a heavily-Anglo neighborhood.

In short, I was dealing with kids who didn’t know any better. I can think back to the incident and laugh my culo off. They didn’t know any better, and their ignorance was just downright absurd.

But I find it hard to find anything particularly humorous about what Fox News Channel is trying to defend as just a technical glitch when they made a reference to “three Mexican countries” that their political savior, Donald Trump, was intending to cut off federal funding to.

Actually, what Trump’s trash talk alluded to was a thought that he could cut federal funding provided to El Salvador, Guatamala and Honduras. None of which are in Mexico, except to those nativist nitwits who want to think that everything involving Latin America is “Mexican.”

WHICH BASICALLY MEANS the nitwits are stupid, most definitely weren’t paying attention during grammar school geography and (most importantly) are really bothered by the fact that anybody would feel the need to correct them on the factual error – which was contained within a chyron; the caption that runs on-screen while the news anchors “speak” on-camera.

Nativist nitwits not singling out Spanish

Now I should state that Fox News types quickly caught their error, and one of the co-hosts publicly corrected the notion that there were separate “Mexican” countries.

Of course, Fox News with its desire to play ideological games with everybody who dares to disagree with their own nativist view of the globe would think nothing of publicly trashing a competitor for trying to claim an error was “just a typo.”

Which is why I have no compunction about pointing out just how stupid a mistake this truly was. Just like I'll point out that Mexico is as much a part of the North American continent as Canada or the United States.

IT WAS SOMETHING that could be excused amongst 7-year-olds. But seeing other people try to reduce our intellectual discourse down to the level of second-graders is nothing but contemptible.

If anything, it is what is most reprehensible about this Age of Trump that we’re now in. I accept we have an intellectual half-wit as our president. It’s the fact that an outspoken minority thinks the majority of us are obligated to accept this is what is wrong – and what ought to be our national priority in trying to undo come the 2020 election cycle.

So no, Mexico is a single country – albeit one with 31 states and a Federal District. Actually, it astounds me the notion that some ideologues get upset about that fact – they don’t want to have to acknowledge anything unique about Mexico.

And as for the language spoken, yes there is a certain dialect of Spanish unique to Mexico (similar to how British English isn’t the same as so-called American English, and certainly not as crude as that babble otherwise known as a Southern drawl).

ANYBODY WHO FEELS compelled to defend such moments of ignorance as expressed on Fox News on Sunday is someone who provides the very definition of a pinche puto and un baboso.

And if you’re feeling a bit confused about the shift into Español, I’d say “look it up yourself” to find out just how insulted you ought to feel right about now.

Some of us too willing to live life like a cheap cartoon

Of course, I don’t really expect you to take the time to reach for a Spanish/English language dictionary to do a translation.

In fact, I expect most of you who were watching the Sunday morning broadcast let the chyron slip right past you without noticing what it said – you were probably more obsessed with gawking at the content contained under anchor Jedediah Bila’s short skirt.

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EXTRA: A political language lesson

It's lawn-sign time, and most of the ones we'll see in coming days will be rather ordinary, if not downright dull. So I couldn't help but get a kick out of this one that I stumbled across on the Internet.

Personally, I think this sign's meaning goes beyond needing to know Spanish. Although this weblog does offer a translation function, if you feel compelled to look up the word.

A double-blow, en Espanol

MY EXPERIENCE IS that this was one of those words for which my mother would have slapped me across the face, if she had heard me using it as a child. Of course, that didn't stop her from often using the word to describe people who were behaving in a particularly stupid or annoying manner.

Political payback for Trump trash talk?

Just as here's another word that would have got me in trouble when I was a child, but I also recall it being one my grandmother would use -- fi she thought I and her other grandchildren weren't listening closely to her.

The scary part? Donald Trump probably thinks HE'S the one being unfairly picked upon by people expressing such thoughts about him.

Although trust me, none of it is nowhere as bad as any of the rancid remarks Trump has made about the nation's Mexican-American (and Latino in general) population.

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EXTRA: Does Kirk gain bonus points politically for speaking Spanish?

KIRK: Habla en Espanol

I'm sure that Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., thinks he gained himself some political points when, during a final debate held Friday between himself and Democratic challenger Tammy Duckworth, he reverted to the use of the Spanish language.

He showed off his bilingual abilities when asked a question by Univision-Chicago broadcaster Erika Maldonado about where he stood on immigration reform, saying, "I'm going to answer this question in the language for whom the issue is most meaningful."

DUCKWORTH: Fighting back in Thai

HE THEN TRIED to say in Spanish that he has been a supporter of the issue, while most of his Republican colleagues in Congress have not. He also tried rubbing it in by saying, "My opponent does not speak any Spanish."

Of course, it could be argued that by trying to portray the issue as purely one impacting Latinos, he is trying to isolate it off so that other voters don't give it much thought. There's also the argument that by giving his answer of moderation in Spanish, he ensures that many of the people who are most hard-core xenophobic in their thought process won't have a clue what he said.

And won't be reminded just how much they disagree with Kirk on this issue, and many others. After all, if he were really in line with their thoughts, they'd probably be backing him and it could be argued that a Donald Trump presidential candidacy would have coat-tails strong enough to carry him back to the U.S. Senate.

I also couldn't help but notice the wire service news accounts of the debate, which indicated that while Duckworth may not speak Spanish, she did show off her skills in the Thai language when answering questions from reporter-types.

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EXTRA: What should we think of 'Chuy' and Twitter site that mocks it?

I’m sure there are some people who are pondering the upcoming mayoral elections and are trying to figure out, “What’s up with the name ‘Chuy’?”

As in former alderman and state senator, and current county Commissioner Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, who is hoping that a dominant share of the Latino ethnic vote, combined with some support from the rest of Chicago, will be enough to make him Mayor come next May.

THOSE PEOPLE WHO are addicted to Twitter and reading all the 140-character phrases they can find now have a new site that plays along with their confusion. (This sentence, for example, is about 156 characters long).

It’s “Chewies for Chuy,” which I have to admit to never having heard of until I read a story about it Tuesday on the DNAInfo.com website. It seems like the perfect site for those individuals who don’t realize “The Daily Show” is (in the words of host Jon Stewart), a “fake news show.”

Meaning it goes for laughs as it purports to give us the thoughts of the Star Wars character Chewbacca (you know, the big fuzzy thing that looks like a walking shag carpet) with regards to the Chicago mayoral race.

Humor, not information, is its purpose. For example, the most recent post as I write this commentary suggests that, “@garcia4chicago should also be @ChicagoBears new quarterback.”

FOR THOSE PEOPLE who don’t have a clue, Chuy Garcia (which is how people who know him personally refer to him) isn’t some sort of freak who named himself for the “Star Wars” films.

Nor does it make him a big fan of the “Chuy’s” restaurant chain across various parts of the United States that provides Mexican-style food for people who think the real thing has too much flavor.

It’s actually a common nickname in Spanish for people named “Jesus.” Similar to how we can think of mayoral hopeful Robert Fioretti as “Bob.” It’s no more complex than that. Or did you believe there are a mass of people walking around Spanish-speaking neighborhoods demanding to be referred to by the full name of the "son of God?"

Although I’m sure it will create more opportunities for silly jokes, such as whenever people named “Ignacio” (common nickname “Nacho”) have to hear lame gags about tortilla chips from clueless Anglos.

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A DAY IN THE LIFE (of Chicago): Ought to be much about nothing

The fact that 33^rd Ward Alderman Deborah Mell is getting divorced ought to be the ultimate ho-hum attempt at a news story; something that comes across as cheap and petty even for an Independence Day holiday weekend.

 

But Mell’s recent announcement, which she made via her Twitter account, that her marriage of three years has come to an end is gaining attention. To the point where I’m wondering how many petty people are going to try to draw this out into something it’s not.

 

WHAT CAPTURES ATTENTION about this marriage was the fact that Mell’s wife was Christin Baker. The couple became engaged in 2010 (with Mell, then a state representative, making a pronouncement on the floor of the Illinois House of Representatives).

 

Then, because they couldn’t wait for Illinois to get its act together on the issue of legitimate marriage for gay couples, they went to Iowa to be married.

 

If they had held out for an Illinois wedding, it wouldn’t have occurred until earlier this year – perhaps during the past month.

 

But then, it would have been too late. For the couple seems to have irreconcilable differences. News accounts indicate Baker has taken a new job in Birmingham, Ala. They have split.

 

I’M SURE SOME people are going to rant and rage against gay marriage and claim this ought to be evidence that such unions are somehow unnatural and unlasting.

 

Which is nonsense, of course. Just look at the number of so-called straight couples who can’t make it past a couple of years of marriage. Was their time together any less legitimate? If it was, perhaps we ought to be abolishing the concept of marriage altogether.

 

Not that anybody with sense is calling for that. If anything, all this means is that partnerships and pairings are fragile and filled with potential for problems. The last thing those couples need are harassment from those with such ideological hang-ups that they need to get a hobby. Perhaps they can rush out to Hobby Lobby to find something to do from people inclined to share their hang-ups about life?

 

What else is notable about life following Independence Day on the shores of Lake Michigan?

 

COP BUDDIES STICKING TOGETHER?: The Illinois Supreme Court issued a ruling this week that upholds the ability of one-time Pullman Area Violent Crimes Commander Jon Burge to keep his pension – even though he’s the cop who led the far South Side unit that reportedly was beating confessions out of criminal suspects on a regular basis.

 

Burge, 66, and retired for more than two decades, is now in a federal correctional center in North Carolina. But for the act of perjury in a lawsuit related to his actions; not for the actions themselves.

 

The state’s high court ruled that a Cook County judge was correct to prevent the Illinois attorney general’s office from intervening in the case when a police pension board upheld Burge’s retirement payments.

 

It seems the board members who were former police officers favored Burge, saying his criminal act came after he left the police. They out-voted the non-former police officer members who would have revoked retirement benefits.

 

DON’T YOU DARE CUT RETIREE PENSIONS: It’s going to be interesting to see just how officials are capable of reforming the way public pension programs are funded.

 

For the state Supreme Court also ruled this week that retirees can’t be forced to pay for the retirement benefits previously promised.

 

State Attorney General Lisa Madigan is claiming that’s a narrow legal issue, but others see it as broader and a move in the direction of saying that there’s going to have to be some other form of reform. Either that, or the retirees literally will bankrupt Illinois government into oblivion.

 

As if Friday night fireworks didn’t give you enough of a headache.

 

BAD ATTITUDES IN BRIDGEVIEW?: The Chicago Fire professional soccer team felt compelled to issue a statement this week, telling their fans to watch their mouths.

 

The Chicago Sun-Times reported that Spanish-speaking fans have taken to using slurs for homosexuals to taunt opposing players. Before you start attacking Latinos, keep in mind that some peoples’ extent of the Spanish language are the slurs and obscenities.

 

Which bothers the team because they want people to make the trek out to their suburban Bridgeview stadium to watch games – particularly in the weeks following the World Cup.

 

Perhaps hoping that some newly-converted types will want to see live matches and will want to spend money, much money, while at Toyota Park.

 

  -30-

EXTRA: Serie del Caribe to get Chicago Sout' Side baseball viewpoint

The ballplayers taking part in the Caribbean Series beginning Saturday were from places scattered all over Latin America, while the umpires came from Mexico and Cuba.

The advertisements around the ballpark were for Polar-brand beer (get it?), while the fans danced to merengue music (rather than the heavy metal or rap music riffs we hear in U.S. ballparks).

AND THE WEATHER or Margarita Island in Venezuela, where this year’s Caribbean Series baseball tourney is being played, was so un-Chicago – sunny skies and 88-degree temperatures on Saturday afternoon.

Which is why I was amused to learn of the broadcast crews that way too many baseball fans will ignore because they’ve been brainwashed into thinking that the Super Bowl somehow matters – or that they’re supposed to care about overpriced commercial spots that will air during the game.

It was as Chicago as one could get.

I found it amusing to tune in to the pre-game show and see that the usual ESPN Deportes broadcasters were joined by one-time White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen – who didn’t give us any verbal whoppers, but tried to make himself appear to be quite the baseball expert.

THEN AGAIN, THE Caribbean Series runs through next Saturday. There will be plenty of opportunities for Ozzie to say something that will manage to tick off somebody, while amusing, entertaining or informing the rest of us.

Although if by chance you didn’t watch the ballgame on television (I don’t know your access to the ESPN Deportes channel – station number 609 on my television set), keep in mind that the ESPN Spanish-language radio broadcasts are using one-time baseball pitcher Orlando "El Duque” Hernandez to give player insight to the broadcasts.

Hernandez might well be remembered most as a New York Yankees pitcher. But let’s not forget his stint with the White Sox team that won the 2005 World Series. His relief pitching stint in the final playoff game that year against the Boston Red Sox (where he pitched three perfect innings, prevented the White Sox from blowing a one-run lead AND made Red Sox slugger Manny Ramirez in particular look like a total chump) is one of those memorable moments.

And I’m sure that to the mindset of the Red Sox fan, Hernandez’s White Sox road uniform looked remarkably similar to when he wore Yankees road grays and did his part to repeatedly shut them down.


An improvement over Bud?

GUILLEN AND HERNANDEZ – it’s a shame they won’t be a part of the same broadcast at some point. Perhaps we’d get a reminiscence or two of that special season from nine years ago when a Chicago ball club actually wound up being the best.

 

Before they go back to telling us about this year’s versions of the Licey Tigers (the Dominican Republic’s champions) or the Hermosillo Orange Growers (from Mexico), or the fact that Cuba is once again being included in a tourney that purports to give us the championship of all Latin America.

All in all, it has me hoping that there’s some truth to the speculation that Caribbean Series officials are considering a change in the rotation of host nations so that it will come to the United States (most likely at the Miami Marlins’ ballpark near the "Little Havana" neighborhood that has cropped up along Eighth Street) in future years.

Be honest. It will be a more interesting spectacle than anything likely to happen Sunday when football (not futbol) fans freeze their behinds off in the wintry weather of the Jersey-based suburbs of New York City.

  -30-

EDITOR'S NOTE: One little tidbit when watching a Spanish-language baseball broadcast. When you hear the announcer say that the batter was "punched out," it means he was struck out by the pitcher. Not that any kind of brawl was about to take place.
 

Carpentersville desire toward bilingual paper a petty gesture to ignore reality

Carpentersville is that far northwestern suburb near the Illinois/Wisconsin border that in recent years has gone out of its way to impose ordinances meant to make the growing Latino population feel unwelcome.

So in that context, nobody should be surprised that municipal officials don’t like the presence of a newspaper in their community that acknowledges the existence of so many Latinos – 50.1 percent of the total population, according to last year’s Census results.

AT STAKE IS the publication produced by the Northwest Herald newspaper based in Crystal Lake. That newspaper covers all of McHenry County, and has tried to acknowledge the growing Latino population by also producing a publication called El Conquistador.

That newspaper (for which I regularly offer a link to their website in the “La Ciudad Segunda” portion of the left-hand column of this weblog) is a bilingual publication. Stories are published in both Spanish AND English.

The point of such papers is that the operators of the Northwest Herald are hoping that people moving into McHenry County who would otherwise ignore them because their command of the English language is lacking will read the bilingual supplement.

As their English improves, they will transition (at least the Northwest Herald editors hope) into readers of the Northwest Herald proper. The newspaper’s editor used a column recently to explain this very concept.

EL CONQUISTADOR IS a business decision. The Northwest Herald wants to continue to exist and remain relevant to the people who now live in their area, and this is the way they reach out to them.

In fact, all newspapers that have taken it upon themselves to publish Spanish-language or bilingual editions are doing so not out of any desire for moral high-ground. It is about economics.

Take another suburban Chicago newspaper, the Times of Northwest Indiana – which is a publication I do some work for as a way of bringing in some income. They also used to have a once-a-week bilingual edition (Viva los Tiempos) that I wrote for. But it was shut down last year because company officials decided that they did not think the advertising revenue was sufficient to make the newspaper worth the time and expense it took to publish it.

My point being that if El Conquistador wasn’t meeting a sufficient demand, its owners would be the first to kill it off. The fact that they continue to publish means it must be succeeding. The publisher wants to make money, and realizes this is one way to grab onto new readers.

BUT NOT EVERYONE is willing to let the market and the desires of our society prevail. Some places have officials who are more than willing to be hostile to those people whom they do not want to fit in.

Carpentersville seems to be becoming such a place; although I noticed that village officials told Jim Romenesko’s nationally-renowned “Media News” website about journalism issues that they think El Conquistador is “a bad newspaper” – without explaining what constitutes “bad.”

Specifically, village officials told the newspaper that they want the stacks of copies of El Conquistador that were being sent to village hall for free distribution to stop. Specifically, they said in an e-mail that its presence at village hall goes against the ordinance from four years ago that made English the official language of Carpentersville village government – a move made purely to appease the ideologues who can’t stand the sight of “all these Mexicans” now living near their homes.

I’m not about to make pompous demands that El Conquistador (a newspaper I have never read, EXCEPT for its presence on the Internet) be restored to village hall. Officials have every right to control what is given away in their building, even if their reasons for doing so are repulsive. I’m also sure that anybody who was picking up a copy at village hall will quickly figure out some other way of getting the paper – if they want it badly enough.

BUT WE SHOULD keep in mind that this is entirely about local officials feeling the need to take a stand AGAINST reality – which is turning out in ways they don’t like.

Carpentersville’s population of 37,691 people last year was barely over half Latino, compared to one decade before when the population of 30,586 was 40.57 percent Latino (and 35.16 percent Mexican-American).

Perhaps seeing those stacks of El Conquistador hit a little too close to home that their public policies meant to discourage Latinos from wanting to live in Carpentersville haven’t stopped the Latino population from growing.

Maybe they really think that if a stack is no longer present in their building that it means the people themselves who might have picked up a copy to read don’t exist anymore either.

IF ONLY LIFE were truly that simple.

Then all we’d have to do is pretend that Carpentersville village officials didn’t exist. That alone would be a significant boost to the Chicago metropolitan area.

  -30-

Baseball acknowledges Spanish language

When the New York Yankees kicked off the 2009 season with a pair of exhibition games against the Chicago Cubs to open their new stadium, there was one detail of the broadcast that caught my attention then – and continues to remain in my mind today.

It was the angle of the television camera in center field that gives us that view from the pitcher’s back as he faces the batter. It also shows us the stands directly behind the catcher.

AS HAS BECOME common, the ballclubs now place little advertisements to promote themselves on the wall – so that all those television viewers will see it over and over and over again throughout the three hours or so of the game.

The Yankees chose to promote their website addresses – perhaps hoping that people will turn to the Internet and click on the team websites. But because of the exact angle of the camera, the web address that got prime billing was Yankeesbeisbol.com. Yankees.com was off to the side, almost as though it was of lesser importance to the team.

Now the difference, for those of you who can’t figure out the obvious, is that Yankees.com is the main web site of the team, while Yankeesbeisbol.com is the Spanish-language translation.

All throughout the season, people watching Yankees games (and they get televised heavily, both on their local broadcasts in New York and nationally on ESPN and Fox) are going to get that constant reminder that the Yankees exist in Spanish too, and that there is a whole world of fans who will start rooting for the men in pinstripes, because they are being exposed to them on the Internet.

NOT THAT THIS is unique to the Yankees. Most teams have multilingual versions of their website. With the Seattle Mariners, the alternate versions are in Japanese (on account of the many Asians in the northwestern U.S.). I remember the old Montreal Expos, to whom the French-language version was the primary website – and the English site was the backup.

I find this encouraging because all too often, professional baseball clubs have tended to view Latin America as a source of hired help who might work more cheaply than U.S.-born ballplayers. Latinos themselves were too often not viewed, except to the degree that they fit into whatever demographics other fans of the game were in.

But at a time when some teams are worried about attendance declining for the next couple of years due to economic struggles, I guess even baseball teams now realize our money is just as green as anyone else’s.

It is with that in mind that I find it encouraging that the Chicago Cubs have worked out a deal to broadcast some of their games on the radio in Spanish. That’s in addition to the WGN-AM baseball broadcasts that are a staple of radio airplay throughout the Midwest.

BACK IN THE days when Sammy Sosa (the pride of the Dominican Republic) was the primary attraction of the Cubs, a Spanish-language broadcast could have brought in so many more fans that it would have made sense. But this season will be the first time in 14 years that any Cubs’ games will be available “en Español.”

I suppose it is a matter of “better late than never” for the Cubs.

But they’re hardly the leader in this field. The White Sox for years have had Spanish-language broadcasts of their games (I remember back in the days when the old All-Star shortstop Chico Carrasquel was the Spanish voice of “los Medias Blancas”).

In other sports, the Chicago Bears (los Osos) have included Spanish broadcasts of certain games they have played in recent years, while the Chicago Fire soccer team is unique in putting its primary radio broadcasts on a Spanish-language station.

FOR SOMEONE NOT able to make the trip out to southwest suburban Bridgeview to catch a Fire match, there is a chance for some games that the only broadcast available will be one “en Español.”

Now I will know something significant has occurred when the Chicago Blackhawks hockey games go on the air in Spanish. Hearing Canada’s game in the language of Mexico will be evidence to me that this is truly one North American continent (no matter how much that concept offends some people).

But at least the Cubs have come around.

Of their 162 games this season, 20 will be broadcast in Spanish.

CONSIDERING THAT THE Cubs represent a city that is just over one-quarter Latino (and one-sixth Mexican-America, to be specific) and is expected to be about one-third Latino by the year 2020, it only seems appropriate that there be some recognition of that in the way the Cubs present themselves to the public.

I doubt they want to be the team that is deliberately excluding a portion of the Chicago population from their fan base. In today’s day, teams can use all the fans they can get. There’s only one potential drawback to this. With the sometimes cloddy way the Cubs are known to play baseball, they’re now going to be exposing their losing trends to people in another language.

We will now hear many Spanish curses directed at “los Cachorros” for the way their shortstop bungled a ball that even they could have fielded. That’s going to be a lot of agony brought on this city, unless Latinos have enough sense to ignore the Cubs and root for the White Sox.

Then again, there are going to be those misplays on both sides of the city this year, which will edge Latino managers Ozzie Guillen and Lou Piniella a little closer to losing their minds for good. That’s just the way baseball is.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Things have changed a bit for Chicago sports teams in terms of exposing themselves to Spanish-speaking people (https://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=10121), compared to the way they were a few years ago.

Spanish-language angst will be on the rise due to misplays by the Chicago Cubs this season (http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/towerticker/2009/04/cubs-expected-to-announce-spanishlanguage-radio-partnership.html).