La Ultima Paja
Question: At what point does a theoretical political debate cross the line and become a direct personal assault? For me, this line was crossed yesterday, at about one o’clock in the afternoon, when I was personally accosted by my friendly neighborhood bank.
I live in a small, typically scenic New England coastal town. Population 18,000. I’ve lived here for half of my life. It’s a nice place to live. 53.4% of our townspeople are married. The unemployment rate here is 2%, those living below the poverty line just over 5%. 90.6% of our local citizens have an educational level of high school or higher, 42.2% have bachelors degrees or higher. The racial demographics are as follows: 0.9% Hispanic/Latino; 0.6% Asian; 0.4% Black; 0.5% Multiracial; 0.1% Other; and 97.4% White.
Now, the theoretical political debate in question here, which you are all familiar with, is our ongoing struggle to save our traditional American culture from being sacrificed on the altar of multiculturalism. But yesterday afternoon, this intense cultural battle burst full-blown into my quiet little living room.
Here’s what happened —
I had just written a check to pay my electric bill and came to the last line of my check register. So, I reached into my desk drawer and opened up that little green box and took out my new check register — that is, my new Registro de Transacciones.
My what? I looked at it again.
To be completely fair, there was an English language version printed directly above the Spanish language version. And I suppose this should have made me feel better, but it didn’t. This dual language check register is, I can only presume, for the benefit of that 0.9% of our local population who are Hispanic/Latino.
I don’t know what those 0.6% Asian folks, or those 0.4% Black folks, or those 0.1% Other folks in this little town think about this latest encroachment on our shared American language, but to me it means that every time I write a new check I’m going to have to post it in that damn Descripcion de la Transacciones column. Now, I don’t really want to do that. So I took the check register back to the bank and asked for a new one.
Well, in case you haven’t already guessed — these ARE the new ones.
My little bank is a very nice little bank and they’ve always been good to do business with, and they promised to do something about this new problem, and they did.
This afternoon I received a telephone call from the Vice-President of the bank who explained that from what she had discovered, all of the new check registers in all of the neighboring banks were coming in this way now. She said that the bank didn’t really have anything to do with these things, that they order their checks from a very large company. I said that just because they were a very large company didn’t mean that they were right. She agreed with me, and assured me that she completely understood my point of view, but –
Finally, and very pleasantly, she resolved the issue this way. She told me that she had found some old style registers that she had put aside and would mail them out to me right away. The only problem with this solution would be that the calendars on the back of the registers would be old calendars.
What she seemed to be telling me was this, that I could have my registers in English only, but that they would have to come from a different era, from that same era that I had come from, that American era that was rapidly fading away. I thanked her for her trouble and said that that would be fine.
But you and I know better, don’t we? It isn’t fine. It isn’t fine at all. As a matter of fact, it’s very far from being fine. This battle for our American culture came to me yesterday in my own little living room and already I have lost it. Oh, I made my little stink about it, but what had I actually accomplished? A fart in a snowstorm.
Am I mad at my friendly little bank? Of course not. Am I mad at those 0.9% Hispanic/Latinos in this little town of ours? Hardly. I don’t even know who they are. Am I mad at that company that makes our new bilingual checks? No, they’re just doing their job.
Am I mad at those loony leftist liberal commie bastards who are trying their level best to give this great country of ours away?
You’re damn right I am!
And I am going to fight them till my dying breath. I am going to fight them with every weapon I have and in every way that I can think of. And I hope that you will be fighting them too.
We can’t just let it all slip away.
Finally, for those of you like myself who aren’t yet bilingual –
La Ultima Paja simply means The Last Straw.
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Really enjoyed reading this. Great post, Roger.
My checkbooks come in English Roger, However I think there is an option to order in Spanish. On another note, they need to print specific items based on the language required and not print multi-lingual items. It would make things less confusing.
America=Engish. It should be that simple.
A tongue in cheek response: Es muy verdad, Roger. Concuerdo totalmente con usted, esto tiene que parar. Hemos permitido que la izquierda huyera con lejos demasiado para demasiado largo. Tiene que parar ahora, antes encontramos nuestra cultura destruidas y reemplazadas por otro. Translation: This is very true, Roger. I totally agree with you, this has got to stop. We have let the left get away with far too much for far too long. It has to stop now, before we find our culture destroyed and replaced by another.
Thank you, Hawk. I'm sure those people who live in our Southern border states will have a laugh at my little muticultural crisis. But the truth comes to us all in different way.
Roger, every time I get the press 1 for English and then something rattled off in Spanish, I wonder how much time in my life has been wasted listening to a few seconds of something that is totally useless to me as an English-speaking American. Then I will be watching Sports Center and they will do a 30-second blurb in Spanish, and the more I write this comment the more I realize that it probably has been more wasted time than I thought before I started typing. Even if it is only, let's be real conservative, let's say 2 hrs of my life then it's 2 hrs that I could have spent with my grandkids or writing comments on blogs or whatever. Great post, Roger!
Hey I live in one of those "Southern" states–and it is a nightmare. Literally everything is bilingual–including the produce descriptions when you're in the grocery store. They've even resorted to "countdowns" on street crossing signs instead of even the walk/don't walk pictures–now it's a hand with a number. Guess the walk/don't walk stick figures were too confusing. Arizona passed a law that everything had to be printed in english, but the special interest groups are protesting and contesting the validity of the election that passed the law. What good was the election then? It's gotta end.
Roger: You don't have to get your checks or registers from your bank. You can order them from any number of other places, with only the information on them that you want. That's what I have done for years. They are cheaper too. It is pathetic that our country has come to this. I foresee a battle one day between the Hispanics and the Muslims over who will eventually control America. Just kidding, but it's almost that bad. I got fed up when I went shopping at Wal-Mart (I know but that's another subject), and all the labels on the meats were in Spanish FIRST and English SECOND. I pitched a fit and apparently other shoppers did too. Now the Spanish is gone.
Good for you, Deb, for pitching a fit. I actually said a lot more to my bank than I went into in that article, but I doubt that it will do much good. I'm still waiting for the hate mail to come in accusing me of being a racist. I'm actually surprised it hasn't happened yet, but the night is young… LOL
I must mention here for those of you who may have missed it, Hawk wrote an absolutely thrilling, angry and truly inspired article, titled "Inverted" for Spree's Wake Up America on 10/7/07 on this overall subject. For anyone interested in this ongoing battle for our American culture this is a must-read. Here's the URL. http://wwwwakeupamericans-spree.blogspot.com?2007...
There is one solution to this - elect Hillary Rodham for president! If Hillary wins, and the Dems widen their majorities in the House and the Senate, we'll see Bush's tax cuts reversed and a slew of tax increases to fund healthcare, end global warming, and save entitlements. With all of our trade deals reworked to protect American jobs, China and South America will close the door to American imports and concentrate on European businesses, further strengthening the Euro and weakening the American dollar. Oil will be near $100 a barrel by then, and with Environmental Protection Agency secretary Algore banning oil drilling in all fifty states and South America refusing to sell oil to us under orders from leader Hugo Chavez, our economy will wither like a battered body gushing blood. My point - the coming economic depression will reverse the migration of South Americans into our country, just like it did in the great depression of the 1930's. Problem solved. Next question?
English=economic opportunity. Spanish is a lovely language, but if it's all you know your eating lunch with janitors and gardeners.
Great article. Welcome to life as we border state folks know it! Here everything is bilingual and often, especially in Wal Mart, the Spanish language gets top billing!
And a bunch of professional athletes…
People still use check registers?
That's taking it a little far. I have a best friend who is Mexican and makes more than the average citizen where I live.
Once again, I'll have to agree to disagree with you Roger. I have no problem with multiculturalism, or with labels printed in both Spanish and English. English-only is INSANELY European. We have to adapt to the changing environment *cough global warming* and if we have to include spanish labels, who cares? What is the big deal?
I think you are right Simmons, I was being sarcastic.
Right about what? He hasn't said anything yet…
I'm with Simmons on this one and I have to say that I absolutely enjoy having different items in multiple languages. I consistently regret slacking off during Spanish class and really wish I had a firm grasp of a foreign language. Any chance I have to pick up a little extra Spanish vocab cannot hurt and maybe one day the influence of the language will spread so far I'll have to learn it. In some aspects I even believe that learning a foreign language gives one a better understanding of other peoples and their culture, but how much I cannot say.
What was I right about again :-)?
Roger, Spree will be our guest Tuesday night on Political Vindication Radio.
English is insanely European? Tell that to the Europeans! Throughout that gathering of countries over there, the English language is the link that brings countries together. How come that can't be the case here? But your underlying prejudice is noted - multiculturalism sees Western culture as corrupt, that's why the left cheers at the prospect of breaking it down. But a unifying language need not be dismissed as racist (European). The consequence of having multiple languages balkanizing communities throughout our diverse population means alienation and conflict - that's human history. The dominant language in America is English, but it would hardly matter if it was Somali - a unifying language promotes understanding and breaks down barriers to communication. The experiment we're trying to try here is to bring, from around the world, races, cultures, religions and refugees to live together in harmony. That can only be done if we all respect the values that transcend tribalism and prejudice. That's the only way the experiment works.
Thanks. I've already got it on my calendar. Wouldn't miss it for the world.
I don't see Western culture as corrupt. If I was FORCED to choose one culture over the next, I'd choose Western culture, specifically American culture. I am in favor of one language. In fact, I'm in favor of one currency, one language, and a strong U.N. But that's besides the point. I don't want one national language thrust upon everybody. We can have a majority language, but free market is the beauty of capitalism. If a company decides to print a label on their check register in Spanish as well as English, good luck to them.
The reason America should remain a mono lingual nation is because our success is all about the great melting pot. Asimilation is America. English, our one language, which by a happy coincidence, is also the language of success, business and will be for a long while yet.
Checks? Haven't written one for ages. As far as the spanish, your experience is less a liberal conspiracy than it is corporations who have seen and are reaching out to a customer base that has been overlooked. In this case, it's banking. A few years ago, I hired a young woman who was born here, but literally had no banking experience. Her parents were from Mexico, they'd managed to run things on a cash economy. It was her first job. Literally, she would get her paycheck, take it to the bank it'd been drawn upon and cash it. The big problem was that she never had anything to save, either. When she went to buy a car, she had no credit. They gave her a loan, but it was an expensive one. When she paid her rent, she got a money order. Over the course of 2 years, I finally convinced her to walk into Banco Popular and open an account. She did, and slowly started to learn about money management. So the banks are trying to educate a portion of the spanish-speaking community about banking. More customers means, more money for them. English in the US is the mainstream language of business, but there's a very large ESL business community that can easily be tapped into and the corporations are doing so. And I disagree, the US is not a monolingual nation. It never has been. That there are now spanish radio stations, tv stations, korean businesses and such are signs of groups joining the mainstream and widening it. If it helps to assimilate people, fine. However, there is a danger of making people so comfortable, they never learn English. This wasn't an option available to my grandparents, who learned enough to get along, but made damned sure their kids excelled in it. I'd like to see that same enthusiasm across the board.
Welcome to PG, waitress Polly. i've just recently become aware of your good work and I applaud you for it. As for your comments, I completely disagree with you. I can't imagine how you can say that this country was never monolingual, it certainly was. All of our textbooks, all of our documents and signs were in Engllish. if you came here it behoved you to learn the language. I think you can judge by the tenor of most of the above comments that I am not the only one who feels angry and resentful, that one new set of immigrants expects us to change our culture to accomodate them, when every other immigrant goup coming into this country adapted themselves to our culture and eagerly embraced the concept of becoming Americans — not Mexican-Americans, or Russian-Americans, just plain Americans. Contrary to what you say, I firmly believe that it is precisely a multicultural attempt to change this country of ours irrevocably. The paradigm of the melting pot served us well for generations, I do not want to see it thrown out the window to accomodate some new group of immigrants who seem to feel that they are owed some special treatment.
PS: Before anyone jumps in to correct MY English, behoved should have been spelled behooved. Sorry.
Roger, I really enjoy coming over here and reading your posts and the comments from all the other folks. I think I can probably make some new friends here at Political Grind. God Bless you for the time you take doing this, it is much appreciated.
It's always nice to hear from you, CP.
Simmons — what you don't seem to comprehend is that you ARE being "forced to choose one culture over the next", and you have NOT chosen.
I have to agree to agree with Roger on this one. A friend of mine just returned from Mexico where he took vacation. Not one thing was in English to accomodate visiting Americans, there "legally." NO ATM machines were dual language and he had to figure them out in Spanish or do without. Why is it only Americans that must accomodate this "spirit of multiculturalism" at the cost of our formerly unique American culture? All multiculturalism brings us is the old axiom, Divide and Conquer.
Yes, Chris C. You've proved your point. You're way out in front of the curve, and us backward folk still write checks. FYI: all my transactions are electronic. This, however, was a special case. Can I get back in the cool people's club now?
Thanks Lew. That's a part of this issue I didn't even know about. But it fits right in with those stringent border control policies that Mexico enforces on their OWN southern borders. This whole debate is so one-sided and hypocritical.