The Star Spangled Banner en Espanol

Disclaimer: I know the 'n' should have a squiggly over it, but special characters in html confuse and frighten me.

Tonight's ABC Nightly News aired a story entitled "Spanish 'Star Spangled Banner' - Touting the American Dream or Offensive Rewrite?" (read it here)

It made me both proud and ashamed to be an American.

Find out how it makes you feel by reading below.

A group of Spanish music stars have presented their own take on the national anthem for Latino immigrants, in their native language, titled "Nuestro Himno" or "Our Anthem."

The idea came from music executive Adam Kidron, who sympathized with the recent immigrant demonstrations but was troubled by the number of Mexican flags in the crowd.

He hopes the new Spanish-language version of the national anthem will demonstrate Latino patriotism and encourage more American flags at the demonstrations.

Sounds good to me. What a creative way to state that America is all about tolerance and variety. What a great effort to demonstrate that the essence of America is our ideals--values that are meant to transcend racial, cultural and language barriers. The American Dream is real, and like the ones we have when our heads hit the pillow, we dream it in the language we were raised speaking. English, Spanish, Greek, Klingon, it doesn't matter. It's the concepts that matter. And the same goes for the musical expression of our individual yet collective Dream, the National Anthem.

Cue the bigots.

The original author's great-great grandson, Charles Key, finds the Spanish version unpatriotic and is adamant that it should be sung only in English.

"I think its a despicable thing that someone is going into our society from another country and ... changing our national anthem," Key said.

Bite me, Charles Key. Or, as my mother (who actually had to go through classes and tests to earn her citizenship, rather than merely benefit from being born in the right hospital) would say: Bakatare.

Key the Lesser (the far, far, lesser) is a member of that malignant tumor infecting the American body politic that doesn't believe in any American Dream. He believes in the American Hoard. His vision of America is something to be kept in a locked cabinet, available only to those who meet his bigoted standards. And I have little doubt that the irony of demanding the US anthem be limited to the native tongue of the country whose bombing of the first American patriots inspired the verse completely escapes him.

As I said before, this made me both proud and ashamed. Ashamed that I have to share my national heritage with such selfish, shortsighted jerks. And proud that I am lucky to share my heritage and country with imaginative, proactive Americans like Adam Kidron and his musicians.

•  You want despicable?

  Find the video of Christina Aguilera butchering the anthem with arpeggio runs. That's despicable.

  by grimc on Thu Apr 27, 2006 at 05:49:43 PM PDT

  •  aoeu

    While I sympathize, the anthem's tune is a drinking song.  It's meant to be played around with.

    by TealVeal on Thu Apr 27, 2006 at 07:23:36 PM PDT

    •  Awesome

      Applause for you for know the drinking song origin of the anthem.

      by grimc on Thu Apr 27, 2006 at 09:55:27 PM PDT

•  IMMIGRANTS AND BEING AN AMERICAN....

  Theodore Roosevelt's ideas on Immigrants and being an AMERICAN in 1907.

  "In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

  Theodore Roosevelt 1907

  by Barbara on Thu Apr 27, 2006 at 05:51:01 PM PDT

  •  Que?

    Oh yeah, that's from his post-public office period where he was raging against the dangers of German-, Italian- and Irish-Americans.

    by grimc on Thu Apr 27, 2006 at 06:00:22 PM PDT

  •  that thinking is so

    last century. ;)

    by coconutjones on Thu Apr 27, 2006 at 06:44:15 PM PDT

•  'Jose, can you see?' Don't troll me, OK? n/t

  by oldpro on Thu Apr 27, 2006 at 06:00:02 PM PDT

  •  I'm not without a sense of humor

    despite the nightly news' efforts otherwise.

    :)

    by grimc on Thu Apr 27, 2006 at 06:01:25 PM PDT

    •  ditto...whew. n/t

      by oldpro on Thu Apr 27, 2006 at 07:01:18 PM PDT

•  all of the above in the poll.

   If I could trust in peoples intentions I would be okay with this. The end, which is being a caring giving American, would them justify the means. However, I like you, know this is not thomas Jeffersons America. So I reserve judgement.

  by jmsjoin on Thu Apr 27, 2006 at 06:01:03 PM PDT

•  Like this?

     O Canada! Terre de nos aïeux,
     Ton front est ceint de fleurons glorieux!

     Car ton bras sait porter l'épée,
     Il sait porter la croix!

     Ton histoire est une épopée
     Des plus brillants exploits.

     Et ta valeur, de foi trempée,
     Protégera nos foyers et nos droits.

     Protégera nos foyers et nos droits.

  by ActivistGuy on Thu Apr 27, 2006 at 06:14:17 PM PDT

•  Ni modo

  es una cancion mala todavia.

  by Desert Rose on Thu Apr 27, 2006 at 06:20:19 PM PDT

•  Is Charles Key Mormon?

  In 1989, at the Inaugural Gala the night before George H.W. Bush was sworn in as President, the National Anthem was sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and introduced by one of its members, Francis Scott Key the whatever (I think it was IV, but I'm not sure), a member of the choir and descendant of the author of the Star Spangled Banner.

  I think it bears checking if Charles Key is also Mormon, given his right-wing position and the discomfort most evangelical wingers have with so-called "Mormon cultists".
  

  by homogenius on Thu Apr 27, 2006 at 06:54:04 PM PDT

  •  I doubt he was alive

    whent he Mormon's got started. The tale or scripture get started in 1820 and it's a slow start.

    url]

    1843 Francis Scott Key is dead.

    my inlaws are Mormon, it's a group that can't be lumped together any more that any other religious or ethnic group.

    by kartski on Thu Apr 27, 2006 at 08:40:41 PM PDT

•  Americans sing in American!!

  Okay I mean English.  I do not feel the anthem should be sang in any language other than English.  What we have here are citizens of other countries entering the US illegally and are so bold as to protest for the right to citizenship.  Only in America.  

  Spanish language radio and television is making a mistake with a Spanish version of the anthem.  I am a black American and do not agree with the democratic position on illegal immigration.  Illegal immigration only benefit money hungry employers who do not want to pay an honest wage for an honest day of work.  This is the one issue that could split the black vote and screw up our take over of the congress.

  by msliberal on Thu Apr 27, 2006 at 08:33:10 PM PDT

  •  'We shall overcome, we shall over-come...'

    ...si, se puede'
    si, se puede'....

    sound familiar? What we had here were aliens from another country yet born here without the right to vote...sound familiar?

    by AmericanRiverCanyon on Thu Apr 27, 2006 at 09:59:48 PM PDT

•  I have mixed feelings about it.

  If our benighted National Anthem was a better song, it might matter more.

  I think there's always a difference between an original and a translation.  For example, I usually enjoy opera sung in the original language more than English versions, because a good opera composer and librettist can combine language sounds and and meaning with melody and create something that is very hard to translate.  Much has been written on this topic.

  And yet, people still perform opera in translation.  Why?  So the audience can understand them!  And I think that this is why it is a good thing for people who wish to express allegiance or commitment to the United State to be able to do it in a language they understand, instead of learning the original version phonetically (as many opera singers do).  That way, they can understand what they are saying.

  In some ways, Nuestro himno is the opposite of the recent imbroglio over Indivisibol, the phonetic version of the Pledge of Allegiance distributed to Spanish-speaking demonstrators a week or so ago.  I think it is a travesty for someone to recite a pledge or oath phonetically, without understanding.  It is much better to recite a translation, or, in this case, to sing a translation, because even if it isn't quite "right", at least it is a meaningful act to the person who is reciting or singing.

  So, in terms of artistry, the translation may or may not be inferior (although as I said before, the Star Spangled Banner doesn't rate too high on the artistry scale anyway.  But in terms of meaningfulness, it is a no-brainer: singing or reciting something you understand is infinitely superior.

  Greg Shenaut

  by gshenaut on Thu Apr 27, 2006 at 09:45:44 PM PDT

  •  Far better for people

    to sing out the words--in whatever language--that evoke the meaning of the Anthem, than robotically intone meaningless words just to get by.

    by grimc on Thu Apr 27, 2006 at 10:02:31 PM PDT

•  Lovely. Key's dumbass descendant

  obviously doesn't realize that Key was English and it was the War of 1812 and he was a POW at the time.

  "I think its a despicable thing that someone is going into our society from another country and ... changing our national anthem," Key said.

  Like, um, YOUR ANCESTOR, DUMBASS?

  by Arken on Thu Apr 27, 2006 at 10:14:27 PM PDT

  •  His grandfather was English...

    from Wikipedia:

    He was born to Ann Phoebe Penn Dagworthy (Charlton) and Capt John Ross Key at the family plantation Terra Rubra near Keymar, Maryland.

    Around the time of the Star Spangled Banner's composition, Keys was an attorney negotiating a POW's release. He and his party were not allowed to return home because the British planned on bombing Baltimore and his return would have revealed positions.

    by anonymousredvest18 on Thu Apr 27, 2006 at 10:54:51 PM PDT

    •  I stand corrected. n/t

      by Arken on Fri Apr 28, 2006 at 07:11:10 AM PDT