I want to hear more about this. On the one hand I doubt any one of us can genuinely claim that we don't believe it is possible for a school to officially do something as mind numbingly stupid as this looks on the surface.

On the other hand for all we know instead of a normal group of kids with some americana clothing they could've been the local racists or something and trying to stir up trouble by antagonizing people in other ways as well.

We need more details before passing any judgement beyond that this could have been handled in ways that don't martyr anyone.

It says all it needs to in those 4 sections. If they had done it because they were trying to start shit... the district would have brought that out.

No, this is about a Mexican-American community upset that someone dared show US patriotism in a US school on "their" holiday.

Every single time an "outrageous suspension" story comes out, eventually it turns out that the original story was sensationalistic and based only on the student's point of view in order to stir up fake controversy.

Someone has already posted that bandannas were against the dress code. I wonder what more the story left out.

Of course, this doesn't stop the usual suspects from playing up the usual cards and claiming victimhood all over again.

---------- Post added at 06:06 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:05 PM ----------

Please tell me how you've had to or were expected to bend over backwards for anyone. Also, please tell me who expects you or is trying to force you to become bilingual.

Every group has a vocal minority that wants all it can get. Why are you singling out latinos? You admit that most of them are just working hard, trying to get by.

Basing your opinion on hypothetical situations which, to your knowledge, have never happened is a waste of time. There's no point in arguing with you about situations which exist solely in your imagination.

Right, well, how about you conflate the actions of a vocal minority with everyone who happens to share the same continent of origin. That makes sense. It makes about as much sense as me using you as a springboard for a rant about all these fucking white people abusing the capslock.

Out of curiosity what have you personally done to bend over backwards for Mexicans that you have never done for someone who was white, Asian, African, etc?

i love POSTS with lots of RANDOMLY capitalized words IN them

We are all about to get bent over -forward-, by 'Latino' illegal immigrants when the amnesty bill passes. Hope you have a good retirement plan.

That aside and nonspecific to Latinos, haven't you been taught all through life that people who get 'special' treatment do so because they are less capable? Personally, that would just piss me off if the government thought I was special.

Is this amnesty bill the same one that will ban all guns and force people to pay 10x more for coal power and gas...?

Yes, this was handled wrong, but you are dealing with immature kids and possibly immature/angry adults. I don't think it was just an accident that all five of them wore those shirts. While there was nothing wrong with wearing those shirts, it depends if they were causing problems, they would be the ones who started it.

But, I also agree with Pan that they are supposed to be assimulating into American culture if they live here. While I will celebrate May 5th at a Mexican resturant, you aren't going to see me wear this shirt there:
T-Shirt Hell :: Shirts :: MEXICAN'T

I can't agree with it because I have no idea what the fuck that's supposed to mean.

Are Latinos supposed to act all WASPy and eat apple pie and hamburgers or something?

And I think someone should call New Orleans; they must have missed the memo.

Of course not...you're Canadian :P

It means that certain minority groups are more concerned with identifying themselves by their ethnic heritage than the country they live in and in a lot of cases, born in.
Example: The kids who claimed to be insulted by the ones wearing the flag t-shirts. I'll bet you anything those kids were born in this country.
Why are they insulted? American kids being insulted by someone wearing the American flag. Its just wrong.
If they are Mexican nationals then they need to just STFU.

You mean like pretty much every group to come to this country?

Funny thing about assimilation. I spent last thanksgiving surrounded by bigots who spent the time in between dinner and pie (which never actually came) making hilarious (they thought so) jokes about Mexicans.

Just to assure me and my lady friend that he wasn't a bigot (we weren't convinced) the man of the house explained to us that he only had a problem with the Mexicans who didn't assimilate. He said this with a straight face smack dab in the middle of a dining room full of stupid little tchotckes celebrating his Norwegian heritage. This motherfucker has multiple Norwegian flags in his house and he's complaining about how those damn Mexicans need to show a little more respect for America by not acknowledging their roots.

Recognizing one's own ethnic heritage is normal. I come from a state which prominently celebrates its Northern European heritage. My neighborhood has rich Eastern European traditions which feature prominently year-round in the names of local businesses and also in annual festivals which celebrate the food and culture of the homeland.

It's perfectly normal for recent immigrants to hold on to and celebrate the culture of their homeland. As my thanksgiving host showed, it's also apparently normal to hold on to and celebrate the culture of the places your ancestors came from.

All this talk of flags is really overblown. Especially here, where the participants are teenagers, and thus prone to making hamfisted political statements solely for the purpose of inciting controversy.

Still waiting...

Pressed "One for English".

Oh I can see now! Those damn Mexican's make us have to choose which language to take some phone calls in! How dare private companies choose to market in a different unofficial language than what I use! I cannot be possibly bothered to have to press one on a phone because that would be me bending over backwards.....

(it was a joke, you knucklehead) :P

My bad. I wasn't sure so I assumed the worst ;) These days people say that kind of stuff seriously...

I guess personally I have been forced to sit on a toilet for an hour after eating a bad chili relleno. And i've also been forced to buy delicious taco's from the local street taco vender....

It's pretty simple really. If you emigrate to a new country, you learn the language and obey the laws.

Heritage and culture have nothing to do with it, that diversity is what used to make us great. When a group not only refuses to learn the language, but lobbies to have their language made an official national language. That's not really good for anyone. It's creating a separate nation within our borders causing separation and derision.

There has to be some give for all you take. If someone leaves a country for political, financial, safety or whatever reason. It is only reasonable to expect them to become a functioning, productive part of that welcoming nation in return for that asylum. Learning the language is part of functioning. It shows a great deal of disrespect and possibly contempt toward that nation to not do so.

Strangely, no other group feels so compelled to impress their lifestyle on their host nation. Most actually seem grateful to be free of the nation they left behind. So why should we make an exception? We shouldn't, that would be disrespecting every other American immigrant or not.

If indeed it is so important for them to remain their own nation, then maybe they need to organize and take their country back from the drug lords and criminal political groups running the show.

Yep that is why we all speak a variety of Native American languages and all go to the Friday night pow wows....

I'm pretty sure when our forefather immigrated to the US they didn't bother adopting the current languages and culture.

Hell there is no single US language or culture. I grew up next to colonies that primarily speak German (and have been there for generations). But I don't here anyone complaining about that. To act like there is a single "American" culture really just shows ignorance.

This is the biggest joke and fallacy of American culture as it concerns this argument.

No there is not an official language.

The reality is, any immigrant, their legal status not withstanding, needs to learn English. Sorry, it's a fact that they will be better for it.

Your forefathers not withstanding the predominate majority of this country speaks english, and the fact that the constitution didn't codify english as the sovereign tounge holds no bearing. Assimilating means learning english. If you come here and don't speak it, learn it, I guarantee you'll be better off for it.

Keep your culture, keep your heritage. At the same time have some fucking common sense about the USA. Yes most wasps, most caucasoids are removed from their "heritage", but honestly?

So absurd.

So why do you think the founding fathers didn't pick an official language?

I don't believe anyone should abandon their own language or heritage upon immigration. There was a very common sentiment in the early 20th century for various cultural groups (i.e.) "Italian in the home, English in the street." Learning the language of your new country doe not diminish your cultural heritage at all.

My other objection is the expense associated with multiple languages in commerce and government. If every form, email, webpage, worker, signage, etc. must be in multiple languages, there is a huge cost associated with that and that cost is passed on to the consumer. We pay for the Lowe's signs in English and Spanish. We pay for the driver's tests in English and Spanish. No other culture in our grand history has demanded that all forms of communication be available in their language as well. All of the early immigration was simply understood that one had to (eventually) learn English to work/live in America. I have a lot of Russian, Turkish, and Indian friends. They all learned English first thing, no questions asked.

on the other hand, my wife has a bunch of Cuban relatives who have lived in Miami for 30+ years and don't speak a word of English. They get along just fine

Our grand history is full of examples of having forms of communications available in their native language:
I would agree that immigrants should assimilate, w/o feeling a need to abandon their heritage, culture and language.....but assimilation does not happen overnight, nor should it be expected to do so.

Lowe's, etc. are doing things in Spanish not because anyone "demanded," but they saw a profit opportunity.

And the idea that in the past it was "simply understood that one had to (eventually) learn English to work/live in America" is not true, unless you count a couple of generations as "eventually."

Recent immigrants, especially Spanish speaking, have been assimilating at a much, much faster pace than most groups in the past. On average, for recent Hispanic immigrants English becomes the primary language at home in 2 generations.

Hold on a minute, guys. I typed pretty fast and didn't really go into much detail. Let me start by saying I'd appreciate it if you'd give me the benefit of the doubt and know that I don't have some anti-immigrant, "anti-brown" people agenda here. I'm just trying to illustrate that there are some differences between earlier immigration trends and today's hispanic immigration trends.

I agree that it has taken generations to learn the language in the past. The resources available today on so many different mediums has dramatically improved the abilities of those motivated to learn our language. In spite of the slow pace at which previous generations learned, they knew they had to and they WANTED to!

You can't say there isn't a difference between that and today with hispanics creating lobbying blocks to have their language added as an official language.

Come on guys, you know there's a difference.

Dippin, I know why Lowe's did it. There's a large population of hispanics who work in industries which frequent Lowe's. That group of hispanics is also least likely to know English. Hence, they did it as a courtesy to those customers. However, that avoids the underlying challenge: getting that population integrated into society so that those signs don't need to be in Spanish.

You think Hispanics are the only ones with lobbying organizations?

While the goals may differ:

Bi-national chambers plot growth ...every Blank_American interest you can imagine.

But I say we start by banning salsa from all school cafeterias and returning to the Reagan days when ketchup counted as a vegetable on school menus.

Hell...not just the schools. Multi-culturalism has invaded kitchens across America. It must be stopped!

Boycott salsa! Restore ketchup to its patriotic place as America's number one condiment. :thumbsup:

But seriously, I would like to see those who are so vocal over what they characterize as multi-culturalism taking over America be as vociferously outraged by those who wrap themselves in the flag in the name of patriotism in pursuit of, or to justify, personal actions and/or national policies that hardly are good for the people, the local community, or the country.

Come on?!? Are you really deriving from my posts that I said ONLY hispanics have lobbying organizations? What I said was, hispanics have lobbying organizations with the intent of getting Spanish to be a second US language. That's a bit different than the German consulate working with the US chamber of commerce on advancing trade deals.

I hope I'm not being lumped in with that "but seriously" paragraph. I ask only two things of our immigrants...and to satisfy rb nomenclature...and our foreign workers: pay your taxes and learn English (within reason). I don't think that's too much to ask.

You've got to be kidding. Native American languages? :thumbsup: Fuckin' good one. So by your logic, we should all speak our ancestors languages. Yeah, that's brilliant, let's do that. :lol:

And yes, there is a single US language, it's English. We are all using it right now.

I don't know why they overlooked it, seeing as to at the time America was a British colony where I imagined the vast majority of citizens were either English speaking or bilingual. Why couldn't Thomas Jefferson foresee that in the year 2010 there would be 20+ million illegal Latino immigrants in America to consider?

That's funny. As a kid growing up on Sesame Street (before the Canadian version) I would have said the languages in the U.S. were English and Spanish.


Agua....

Uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, seis...!

These little dickheads went to school trying to stir up a hornet's nest and they succeeded. This has nothing to do with nation pride or freedom of speech or being American or Anti-American, it has to do with teenage punks who were trolling and got punished for it.

A guy at my school wore a t-shirt that said "I survived Columbine and all I got was this lousy t-shirt" a couple weeks after that incident. He got sent home. Same scenario.

Twist this into 'GOD BLESS 'MERICA AND OUR FREEDUM OF SPEECH' all you want but that's not what it's about. Sensationalistic journalism is sensationalistic.

"They're upset because they wanted to express their American pride." Bullshit. They wore them on this specific holiday with the INTENT on stirring up shit, not on being patriotic.

QFT. Also it is much harder for older generations to assimilate, in their cases it is their Children who assimilate. I bet there is a large number of people on this board whose grandparents or great grandparents didn't speak much English.

---------- Post added at 08:34 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:29 PM ----------

No I don't think we should be speaking Native American languages. However, whenever anyone gets all holy about "our" country being "our" country and everyone else should stay out, I have to wonder if they even know how this country became "our" country. We came in and stole the land by force. We then forced the natives to adapt our culture and our language.

---------- Post added at 08:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:34 PM ----------

They didn't choose one because most of them were bilingual and they didn't want to exclude anyone from the US. They wanted the US to be a melting pot for the world, a country of many cultures coming together to form one nation. When we talk about keeping cultures out of the US we are going directly against what our founding fathers wanted.

I'm curious to know what assimilation without abandoning heritage, culture, and language is supposed to look like.

It's not about keeping out cultures. It's about respecting/taking note that the USA is a sovereign nation of itself. We have our own history, our own culture, and a lot of people are getting sick and tired of feeling like they for whatever reason have to differ to some asinine notion of multi-culturalism/politically correct bullshit.

---------- Post added at 03:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:41 PM ----------

America, sans the whole language thing.

When one comes to America, how does one select one's assimilation? Is there some kind of catalogue, or is it standardized geographically?

I really don't know either Baraka.

What does it really mean to be American? Whats a foreigner expected to do?

Learn the language? Okay I guess I can see why speaking a common language could help us all out..

What else?

Attending baseball games and eating a hotdog?
Become Cowboys fans and drink Budwieser?
Reciting the pledge? Holding a sparkler on the 4th?
Buying a needlessly large truck, driving it to an even needlessly larger house and watching tv on a still needlessly larger tv?
Eating apple pie? Watching westerns? Get REALLY fat?

Aside from following the laws I'm not really sure what else an immigrant should be expected to do. One of the greatest things about the US (and a lot of other countries) is the ability to define how you want to live your own life, if somebody wants to speak another language and follow different customs more power to them. It has no baring on my life or how I choose to live it and in the end that's all that really matters to me. In other words its none of my business what somebody chooses to do when they get here.

As for the OP these stories usually just wind up being big, gusty, wind filled bags of hype tossed around by either side to illustrate a point. I would imagine the truth on this lies somewhere in the middle but I'm sure both sides will find every reason to dig out a ton of good old fashioned self righteous indignation over it. Meh, in the end everybody will get over it I'm sure.

What I find most interesting about this whole matter is that it has escalated to the level of a national political issue. I don't think it warrants that, though I can see why it is being made into one - it dovetails nicely with some very deep political cleavages.

A few students made a statement, and then they received a light punishment. This is interesting in itself, but not really extraordinary.

When I was in school, a group of us participated in a brief walk-out to protest the Iraq war that we all knew was coming. Each of us received a suspension. The administration handled us with relative decency, but they were firm.

As in this case, there was no long-term damage to any of our school records or careers. In both cases, students were able to speak up for something in an unorthodox way, and the administration decided to respond in a certain way in order to maintain a sense of control over student behavior. In my own case, I can say that the punishment probably taught me as much as the experience of the protest itself.

None of this is to say that it's unfair to scrutinize this particular incident and have strong opinions about the matter at hand. But it seems to me that this is primarily a matter for the students, parents, and administrators involved - and I find it poor form that one of those groups has summoned the national media and turned this into some sort of proxy debate about immigration and American culture.

I'm not willing to condemn the students as racists or trolls; in truth I have no idea what they are like or what they were thinking. Same goes for the school.

A couple of things on this:

1) the language thing is useful, but not overly essential for new immigrants. It's their children you really want. Concentrate on assimilating them.
2) Culture. American culture (Canadian too) is an amalgam of different cultures. It will change (continually) with the influx of new cultures. There is no orthodoxy in this. There simply can't be. Get over it.
3) Laws. American is a nation of laws... not people. The people who come to America must (no exceptions) embrace this legal system. It is these laws that make America what it is, not whether you speak English or eat hot dogs, etc.
4) Common cause. Difference of culture is diversity. Diversity is a good thing. That said, it can divide if there is no effort towards a common cause. I would argue that point 3 is basis of that common cause. The building of a better America, is the goal. There are always going to be different ideas of what a better America will be, regardless of your cultural makeup. Always.