On being American, part 1

"Para español oprima numero dos".  I hear it any time I call a customer service numer.

While watching football this weekend, I saw a commercial for Lowe's.  When the husband and wife walk into the kitchen department, the sign above them has written "Centro de la cocina" just below the English.

I was helping clean up a school in north Milwaukee recently as part of our company's community service day.  The signs in the hallway that said cell phones should be turned off were written in Spanish, not English.

I get a credit card bill and it's in English on one side and Spanish on the other.

We need to turn in the forms from my kids' school photos today.  The form was conveniently written in both English and Spanish.

I love Latin culture, the music, the food, the language, las chicas, etc.  One of my two best friends is Mexican.  When I go to a Mexican grocery store or restaurant (which is often), or when I'm in Latin America (which is not so often), I do my best to speak Spanish.  When I struggle, I apologize (in Spanish) and rather than just switching to speaking English, I ask for their help to learn the Spanish phrase I am attempting to say.  I feel that it is the way to show respect to their language and culture.

And yet, it kind of feels to me like our American culture is being invaded.  Now before you go and call me xenophobic and tell me that there is no "national language" in Los Estados Unidos, just hear me out.  When my ancestors came to this country, they wanted to become Americans.  There was a great deal of pride in that.  Of course they wanted to maintain their culture, but they also wanted to assimilate into American culture.  They were embarrassed if they couldn't speak English.

I love the cultural diversity that makes up this country -- the metaphorical "melting pot".  But when you melt something, it merges with the other things your are melting.  There seems to have been a shift in the last 100 years away from the idea of melting into a unified American identity/culture and toward something else that I'm struggling to name without referring to The Borg.  It's as if the ethnic identiy has taken precedence over the American identity and may even be attempting to usurp it..  I believe that part of the American identity is being able to speak the de facto language here -- English.  Because honestly, I think we're only a handful of years before English is the secondary, subtitled language that shows up on signs.