Just Latinos -or " Invasion of Body Snatchers " ?

I have been a critic of the more mindless forms of political correctness

    but at least political correctness -outside the universities ! - seems

    to be rather good natured and just wants us to be nicer to one another,

    whatever our racial or cultural differences.

                But how nasty the opposite of political correctness can be

    I witnessed listening to Talk Radio. The hot topic : bilingual ballots,

    in Spanish and English. Most of the callers to our low brow cheer leader

    -known as THE INDEPENDENT MAN - were furious over this blatant subversion

    of the American Way.

               The Spanish speaking CITIZENS were spoken of with such

    paranoid hostility, such contempt that I was reminded of the 1950s

    science fiction film : " The Invasion of the Body Snatchers ".

               Way back in my high school days I was advised to study

    at least one foreign language - and told that Spanish was the easiest

    language for us " native Americans " to learn.

            What  I learned from my two years of Spanish language study

    at the Community College of Rhode Island was this : There is nothing

    ALIEN about the people of Mexico, Central and South America. Their

    culture was predominantly Western Civilization, their religion- Roman

    Catholicism.

             In many ways the Spanish speaking immigrants are a lot like

    the older generation of Italian immigrants.

                 Both Spanish and Italian are derived from ancient Latin

    -from which come about 70% of our English vocabulary.

                For the intellectually curious : the everyday words of

    Spanish are often connected etymologically to our more sophisticated

    vocabulary.

                   One language learning experience : the feeling that

    PEOPLE are alike everywhere !

               A bilingual ballot is just cultural courtesy - not the end

    of life as we know it.

                 Find a more serious problem to lose sleep over !