More Spanish-Speakers than Spain

"Happy Cinco de Mayo! The best taco bowls are made in Trump Tower Grill," Trump tweeted, "I love Hispanics!" 5/5/16

The American showdown has begun. White Christian traditionalists vs a racially, ethnically and culturally diverse “other.” The traditionalists, through voter restrictions and gerrymandering, have the votes. They control the majority of state governorships, state legislatures, Congress and the presidency. Donald Trump is their spokesperson.

But these traditionalists are the true minority these days, finally outnumbered by those former “minorities.” There is no legal way for them to hold on. Voter ID laws are constantly being tossed by courts. On August 23^rd, for example, a federal judge ruled against yet another failed attempt by the Texas legislature to mandate voter IDs aimed at excluding minority voters. Gerrymandering is before the U.S. Supreme Court. As fast as Donald Trump can shove these former “minorities” folks out the door – literally and by distorted legal structures – their numbers still grow.

Forgetting about the millions and millions of non-Hispanic “minorities” who are a very large part of the American body politic (Asians, blacks, etc.), just looking at our Latino Americans, they are clearly in numbers “too big to ignore” or continue to marginalize. “Drawing on a critical mass of native speakers, the United States now has by some counts more than 50 million hispanohablantes, a greater number of Spanish speakers than Spain. In an English-speaking superpower, the Spanish-language TV networks Univision and Telemundo spar for top ratings with ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC. The made-in-America global hit song of the summer? ‘Despacito.’”  New York Times, August 23^rd.

And as much as the Trump administration, through leadership changes and budget cuts, is trying to marginalize the reporting of these ethnic minorities in the upcoming 2020 U.S. Census, they cannot be held down forever. Like it or not, the United States is one of the most ethnically, racially and religiously diverse nations on earth. None of the Mexican walls, racist marches, renegotiated trade agreements, limitations on and reductions in the number of all forms of visas, or the justice department’s reversion to “law and order” over the former priority of “equal justice,” are going to change the complexion of who we really are.

Yet as the Trump administration’s words following the disgusting neo-Nazi, KKK and white supremacist march in Charlottesville pretty much confirm what we already know. “America First” really means “White Christians” first. “Make America Great” really means “Make America White Again.” Trump’s white America base is committed to using every means that they can twist the legal system to exclude those once-minorities and seal white Americans’ control over the entire political (and concomitant economic) system. They are pushing at every possible level. Even at language.

“[More”] than 20 states have enacted laws making English the official language, President Trump won the election with a platform that included building a border wall, and his push for new limits on legal immigration would require that applicants speak English to obtain legal residency green cards…

“Immigration from Latin America bolstered the use of Spanish in the United States in recent decades, but scholars say other factors are also in play, including history, the global reach of the language, and the ways in which people move around throughout the Spanish-speaking world.

“Authorities in parts of the United States have repeatedly argued for curbing the spread of Spanish, like the former Arizona schools chief who said all Spanish-language media should be silenced. A judge pushed back this week against that official’s drive to also ban the state’s Mexican-American studies program, saying the ban was ‘motivated by racial animus.’

“Linguists trace some of the coveted vibrancy that Spanish now enjoys to decisions made well before Spain began colonizing the New World in 1492… Even today, Spanish remains mutually intelligible around the world to a remarkable degree, with someone, say, from the Patagonian Steppe in Argentina able to hold a conversation with a visitor from Equatorial Guinea, one of Africa’s largest oil exporters…

“Rivaling Spain and parts of Latin America, the United States exemplifies how the movement of people throughout the Spanish-speaking world is taking the language in new directions.

“In metropolitan Los Angeles, an area with more than 4 million Spanish speakers — more than Uruguay’s entire population — linguists say that anew dialect has coalesced as different types of Spanish come into contact with one another. And… in New Mexico, an influx of Mexican and Central American immigrants is nourishing and reshaping a variant of Spanish that has persisted since the 16th century.” NY Times.

It’s a pretty disgusting to watch how far this extremist wing of white America will go to push and shove black, Asian, Jewish and Hispanic Americans out a trap door that does not exist. Did I mention that I am a white Christian America… and was actually born here? But this never-ending attempt to reconfigure my country into white America simply makes me sick. That ethnic, cultural, religious and racial diversity is what has already made America great.

I’m Peter Dekom, and mixing people from diverse backgrounds has led to a nation that, at least to date, has been the most innovative country on earth.