The politics of español

“WHEN I FIRST heard that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa had agreed to deliver the Democratic Party’s Spanish-language response to President Bush’s State of the Union address, I had the urge to call him up and plead, “Say it ain’t so, Tony.”

There’s certainly nothing wrong with the Democrats producing a political message in Spanish ”” Bush also has delivered radio addresses in the language ”” but the ethnic politics behind the decision are decidedly lame. If the Democrats had really wanted to offer a powerful message of inclusion that would appeal to the maximum number of Latino and non-Latino voters, they would have invited Villaraigosa to give the party’s response in the language with which he is most comfortable: English….”

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