{"id":2201,"date":"2012-03-01T14:53:27","date_gmt":"2012-03-01T19:53:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/?p=2201"},"modified":"2012-03-01T14:53:27","modified_gmt":"2012-03-01T19:53:27","slug":"rick-santorum-and-puerto-rico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/2012\/03\/01\/rick-santorum-and-puerto-rico\/","title":{"rendered":"Rick Santorum and Puerto Rico"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Santorum in the "country" of Puerto Rico<\/p><\/div>\n

Although the Santorum presidential candidacy may soon be a thing of the past, his visit to Puerto Rico may live in infamy, at least among many Latinos, both on the island and the continent.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Mr. Santorum, expressing ignorance or cultural insensitivity or both, made the following ill-advised remark:<\/p>\n

\u201cAs in any other state, you have to comply with this and any federal law \u2014 and that is that English has to be the main language.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are other states with more than one language, as is the case in Hawaii,\u201d he continued, \u201cbut to be a state in the United States, English has to be the main language.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

His subsequent “misspeak<\/a>“, although immediately corrected, may have been something of a Freudian slip, as Mr. Santorum accidentally referred to Puerto Rico as a “Spanish-speaking country”.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were requirements put on other states when they came into the union that English be the principal language. … It was a condition of admission to statehood, and that\u2019s simply what I\u2019ve said.”<\/p>\n

\u201cPuerto Rico is a Spanish-speaking country \u2014 excuse me, a Spanish-speaking island, not a country but a Spanish-speaking island \u2014 and they\u2019ll continue to speak Spanish, and of course that\u2019s their culture, and they have every right to do so.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Apparently the former senator was creating preconditions of his own, those not shared by Republican opponent former Governor Mitt Romney who countered<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“I will support the people of Puerto Rico if they make a decision that they would prefer to become a state; that’s a decision that I will support. I don’t have preconditions that I would impose.”<\/p>\n

To former Senator Santorum, like many citizens of the United States, any people who do not speak English as their ancestoral language are a country of their own, a strange group of people not to be fully identified with the “good ol’ United States”.<\/p>\n

I speak daily to Hispanic immigrants of my city.\u00a0 Most of them either speak or are learning to speak English.\u00a0 But I love to speak to them in Spanish, which is my<\/em> second language.\u00a0 In doing so I, at least symbolically, pass through the cultural divide experienced by many English-only Anglos.<\/p>\n

And when I do, I am neither more nor less USAmerican.\u00a0 Nor are they any less fascinated with the concept of the “American Dream.” Nor do they dispute Governor Romney’s view that English is a “language of opportunity”<\/p>\n

Surely US exceptionalism includes the ability to welcome with respect peoples of many cultures and languages; to offer to share our culture and language as we celebrate theirs (whether we chose to speak their language or not).\u00a0 To degrade a people, or a potential state, as substandard because “they” are not “us”, is not exceptional.\u00a0 It is simply the pettiness of nationalism seeking some sort of official recognition.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
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Although the Santorum presidential candidacy may soon be a thing of the past, his visit to Puerto Rico may live in infamy, at least among many Latinos, both on the island and the continent.<\/p>\n Continue reading →<\/span><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-immigration","category-race-relations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2201\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}