Posted on 07/11/2011 11:38:08 AM PDT by a fool in paradise
The stumble came in the word zulo, which means "hideout" in English, for San Antonio's sole contestant in the first-ever National Spanish Spelling Bee.
Linda Duann Rodriguez, about to start her freshman year at East Central High School, confused the letter "z" with the letter "s" in the competition at the National Hispanic Cultural Center on Saturday morning. After the judges told her "incorrecto," she exited the stage as the third student disqualified and watched as the finalists continued competing.
...After two hours, Evelyn Juárez, a seventh-grader from Carlos F. Vigil Middle School of Santa Cruz, N.M., emerged victorious after conquering the last two words in the competition: kanindeyuense, meaning a resident of a part of Uruguay, and bizantinismo, meaning Byzantinism.
...The inaugural National Spanish Spelling Bee, organized by the New Mexico Association for Bilingual Education and the Alliance for Multilingual Multicultural Education, is modeled after New Mexico's statewide Spanish Spelling Bee, 15 years strong.
New York and Oregon also have started state spelling bees, but Texas hasn't followed suit. ...Briseño, executive director of NMABE, said ESPN has approached the group to televise the bee and will film the competition for a promotional video to attract advertisers.
While the inaugural bee is small, he said ESPN hopes it could become the popular cousin of the English-language bee it broadcasts to a major cult following...
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
Ping!
I have mixed feelings on this. I applaud the young person for striving for excellence, but I have trouble with activities that reinforce a subgroup’s tendency to not adopt our country’s language and such.
Who gives a Flying F!
I hear the illegal immigrants are here only to do the work that no Americans want to do and then I read how they should be elligible for in-state college tuition and student loans with no social security number.
Sounds like they want some higher paying jobs in a US economy when the citizens are already over 10% unemployed.
Someone is being dishonest in making the argument for supporting a foreign colonization of Estados Unidos.
This is a direct assault on our culture,by the language of failure.
How do you spell “multiculturalismo no funciona”?
My feelings aren’t mixed at all. This is the United States and we speak and spell in English. Spanish spelling bees belong in Mexico or Spain. Here in Texas we deal with hordes of people who refuse to learn English, and that’s just the legal ones. Signage everywhere is in two languages, we have a ton of Spanish cable channels, Spanish radio stations, etc. It is divisive and expensive.
Didn't mention to them that I already did.
When will the soft twinkies of America get it? This is an invasion and takeover. They'll tell you straight to your face that's what it is and then say, "whatcha gonna do 'bout it, Greengo?"
And the answer is nothing, because all the Americans are afraid of their own government if they say "well we're going to throw you out, this is our land".
The Mexicans are simply setting up Mexico on American soil because they realize that the Americans are too weak to defend it. The "civil rights" laws have gutted the ability to resist: invasion is treated as a civil right by the judiciary and the bureaucracy.
It’s been over 160 years since Mexico ceded to the US what is new New Mexico. In many parts of the state, Spanish is still the first language and the state constitution requires official documents and voter ballots to be printed in both languages. NM is a minority Anglo state with Hispanics and Native Americans making up almost 56 percent of the population.
Now having said all that, there are many here whose Spanish heritage dates back several hundred years and are fully assimilated except for the last name. An interesting aside is that a friend’s wife is Hispanic and works in a bank. Many Spanish speaking (laborers, many illegal no doubt) cash their paychecks at a window with a teller having an Hispanic name. However, she is Americanized to the extent that when they speak Spanish to her, she doesn’t understand and they get angry and berate her.
The gap here between those who have been here for generations and those who have only recently jumped the fence is much greater than would be expected. Just like a century ago immigrant Irish were called “mics” and Italians “wops”, so it goes with the conflicts between old and new Hispanic cultures in New Mexico.
As far as the subject of the article, a Spanish spelling bee in New Mexico is of little importance given the state’s long bilingual history. However, it is of much more importance in other states where Spanish is encroaching on English as the primary language and events such as this do not aid in the goal of a single assimilated nation.
NM list PING! Click on the flag to go to the Free Republic New Mexico message page.
(The NM list is available on my FR homepage for anyone to use. Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from the list.)
Like this.
My congratulations to this young girl. Good job Evelyn.
Your point? I speak both French and Spanish, but the language of my country is English.
There’s nothing wrong with a school having a Spanish spelling bee. Are they compelling people to speak Spanish? No. I encourage bilingual people, though I insist the language of government and law be English.
The fun will start when a non-hispanic kid wins the contest one year.
Yes, there would be fireworks, that’s for sure.
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