Nuestro Himno: Solidarity or Disunity?

Intended to promote unity and solidarity, Nuestro Himno is the newly released Spanish version of The Star-Spangled Banner, the national anthem of the United States. Since its release, President Bush has said, “I think the national anthem ought to be sung in English,” thus triggering a reaction from large segments of the media, most indicating, some but implicitly, that this position is inherently intolerant. But with a President whose approval/popularity rating stands at just a little over 30%, I think this particular reactionary onslaught is a much better example of the media’s attempt at something like a coup de grace than it is of sound analysis involving abstractions like tolerance about which they say much, but know little.

According to Tolerance.org, a Web project of the Southern Poverty Law Center that bases its definition of tolerance on UNESCO’s Declaration on the Principles of Tolerance, tolerance is “a way of thinking and feeling—but most importantly, of acting—that gives us peace in our individuality, respect for those unlike us, the wisdom to discern humane values and the courage to act upon them.” As such, tolerance is a two-way street where people on both sides of the road assume some responsibilities in exchange for the rights they either enjoy or anticipate enjoying. What’s more, tolerance is not without its limits, including the actions of others that promote chaos or otherwise undermine one’s being.

So, had the media assessed the proposal to sing a Spanish version of The Star-Spangled Banner against this or some similar standard of tolerance, I am at a loss not only for how they could’ve concluded that Bush’s position is intolerant, but also for how they interpret the position of the proponents of Nuestro Himno to be anything but that. How else is one to interpret a translation that is not faithful to the original?

The translation’s faithfulness to the original aside, the “official” language of the United States is English. If the United States wants to legitimize a Spanish version of the national anthem for anything but pedagogical purposes (so that its legal immigrants can learn the English version), then it should be prepared to abandon altogether the charade of being uniquely different from its neighbor to the north, where annually enormous sums of money go into supporting an officially bilingual society, many of whose Francophones represent a constant threat to the integrity and strength of that society with the persistence of their secessionist tendencies.

Just because the United States ought to avoid slippery slopes like the one that plays into the hands of proponents of La Reconquista and a subset of immigrants who justify their illegal status on the basis that they are living on land that they say belongs to Mexico, does not imply that it’s intolerant. Rather, it’s resistant to groups that would push the limits of tolerance, with what amounts to threats of conquest, or that would try to enjoy certain rights to which they are not yet entitled rather than foregoing a mentality of entitlement and engaging in the hard work of assimilation—assimilation into a society that has a history of respecting heritages that are foreign to itself.

Is there room for improvement? Probably, and for ideas one might look to countries like present-day Germany—where a large immigrant population doesn’t expect Germans to sing Turkish or Russian, for example, but instead takes advantage of plentiful and affordable institutions to acquire another language and to get instruction about German culture. Surely the development of a network of similar institutions would be a far better investment than throwing money at a group of people that isn’t particularly interested in traditions other than its own and whose claim to land that doesn’t belong to it is hardly an effective strategy for unifying people.