Posted on 10/06/2005 6:20:04 AM PDT by DogBarkTree
A recent Mexican Independence Day assembly at Larkin High may have taken cultural sensitivity one step too far, a Larkin parent said this week.
Robert Bedard said his son was reprimanded when he declined to stand for the Mexican National Anthem during a ceremony at the west Elgin school last month.
His 17-year-old son, a senior in the process of enlisting, feared honoring another nation’s anthem might jeopardize his military status. Sitting down cost him a trip to the office.
Bedard questioned this week whether the scales of cultural diversity may have tilted out of balance.
“I am concerned that the Mexican Americans have unfairly monopolized the teaching of cultural awareness at this school,” said Bedard, a lieutenant with the Elgin fire department. “At least that’s the perspective of a parent. I’d love to be corrected.”
School leaders sought to do just that.
Just as Latino students orchestrated an assembly for Mexican Independence Day, officials said, black students host an assembly commemorating black history month in February.
“If we were teaching one culture’s history over another, then we have an issue,” school board President Ken Kaczynski said Wednesday. “But I don’t think that’s the case.”
The history lesson followed a maelstrom of controversy last spring when a Larkin student wrote an essay lamenting the celebration of Mexican holidays in American schools.
The teen faulted Mexican students, saying they shouldn’t have lowered the American flag in favor of a Mexican flag on Sept. 16, 2004.
Larkin officials later said the American flag was raised again before class began. No students ever were found responsible.
“Of the ethnic groups at Larkin,” Principal Richard Webb said, “the Hispanic group is growing at the most increased rate and of that Hispanic group, the vast majority of students are Mexican-American.”
Of the 2,550 students enrolled at Larkin last year, 38.4æpercent were Latino. Nearly a quarter of students were new to English. Information for the current school year is not yet available.
Four years earlier, 20 percent of the school’s 2,029 students were Latino, according to the 2000 school report card. Some 10 percent of students spoke English as a second language.
As the school grows more diverse, cultural assemblies will follow, Bedard said. But they should take care to represent a range of cultures, including the homegrown one.
“If they have an assembly, I would be happy if they will not try to force students to honor patriotic elements of another culture unless they also honor our flag, our anthem as well,” Bedard said. “It’s just respect for both cultures.”
My family has fought for our country in every war we have had.
I will be handcuffed and dragged away before I will stand for
any other nation's national anthem in my own country..
This is one heck of a good kid....
imo
More proof that diversity and multi-culturalism are balkanizing America.
Doesn't this kid know the correct way to honor Mexico day is to spit on the crowd and throw empty beer bottles?
Welcome to the Community, subject.
Amen! If he had been a little, liberal moonbat protesting the war (or anything else about America, for that matter), he'd have been celebrated or the ACLU would have rushed to his defense.
He's not disrespecting the Latino culture at all, but he rightly understands that this is his country
Very nicely put!!
I do think the school officials are taking this a bit too far. Learning of other countries first-hand is a great opportunity. But he understands he is American.
I also say 'Great' to all the mexican and mexican american students scrambling to get to school and get an education. We have TONS of blacks and whites around here who simply won't go to school.
You 100% on the spot. Their food taste like a sh**t,their music sounds like hell and their flag looks like a rug.Culture? What culture????
Ping
ping
Just damn!
When students are permitted to sit during the Pledge (which is fine with me), but are reprimanded for sitting during the anthem of a foreign country, we are in serious trouble.
This is the exact problem. We should not teach any culture except our own - the American culture.
When in Rome, do as the Romans...when in Elgin, Illinois, do as you are told to do...seems like the inmates are running the asylum in this school, and I applaud the young man for refusing to stand for someone elses' National Anthem. Glad his folks are supporting him too, and asking all of the right questions. Send the principal to Mexico, or feed him hot Mexican food for a week or so...what B.S. this is.
But his father gave the wrong reason for not standing.I would never let my child to honor any other flag unless he is the citizen of this particular country.
That made me think what would happen if we burned a mexican flag at cinco de maya. I would bet we would be in more trouble for burning their rag then if we just burned the stars and stripes.
What does 'cabrones' mean?
Nor should it dip for Mexico or people who would want the SW us to be Mexico..
I like Tex-Mex. The native Mexican food I ate while there....was BAD. Especially the chicken mole.
My wife and I were on the Champs Elysee in Paris last year watching the Bastille Day parade. When the French national anthem played, we acted the part of gracious guests and saluted the French flag. To our surprise, nobody else was doing so. If the French won't salute their own flag in their own country, why should American students in America be required to stand during somebody else's national anthem?
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