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.