I have to agree with Theodore Roosevelt on this subject: "We have room for but one flag, the American flag. We have room for but one language here, and this is the English language. And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."
CA - American students catch heat for wearing red, white & blue on Cinco de Mayo
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Opie
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sassy_texasbelle2
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Then have them spend the money they would use coming here illegally to come here as a legal citizen. Take the test at an American Embassy and then come to the US for your better life.
FYI I am 1/2 Cherokee Indian
The freedoms each citizen of the United States includes those students who wore the t-shirts with the american flag on it on Cinco de Mayo. As with many things, there will always be someone who takes offense at just about everything - what people say, what they wear, how they walk, talk, etc . The students who took offense and thought the t-shirts were disrespectful have a right to say that is how they feel. That is their right under the right to free speech. But, the students with the american flag t-shirts still have a right to wear them. That is what makes this country so great. Bottom line - the students who found the shirts offensive had a right to say that, but did not have the right to demand the american flag t-shirts be changed or turned inside out. It seems we are becoming the United States of Offended, and the sooner this stops the better for every US citizen. That is my two cents, and JMHO.
In this video someone please tell me WHY the Mexican flag is flying at the exact same height as the American flag??? No flag is supposed to fly above or equal to the American flag.
Angels_Not_Forgotten
Anxiously Awaiting a WINNING NFL Season!
peace? you mean giving them STD's on blankets and moving them to a portion of what was rightfully theirs? lol to think our ancestors were any better is deplorable.
tlcya
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No one. It is the timing of this story that has sparked the big immigration debate. Because it is a very heated debate, and the students who opted to wear the stars and stripes may well have done so because they wanted to make a statement about how in their opinion Latino culture is being thrust upon them, even in an american public school.
ziggy
Active Member
Some Mexican ancestors did the same things to the American Indians. FWIW our government pays the ancestors of Native American Indians; does Mexico?
I tired of blaming ancestors for land grabbing. People did that back in the day. We grow, we learn; we populate and we have to let go and say NOW it is what it is.
If American kids do not like the Mexican culture thrust upon them in school they have a right to say so. Free speech.
This is the first country really based on IDEAS; so if those who come here don't share our forefathers' IDEA of what our America is, then we gotta problem.
Goodbye sweet America. Glad I knew you when.
Jack
New Member
Perhaps they WERE trying to make a statement. Maybe like me they think that since this The United States the only independance celebrating that should be going on is our own. Honestly, Cinco do Mayo has no place in this country. Does Mexico celebrate the 4th of July? This may seem harsh but frankly I think if one wants to celebrate the independance of a particular nation they should go to that nation to do so. Otherwise its just an excuse for a party.
jannuncutt
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I find it interesting that you asked us to picture you as a white person, rather than an American.
cluciano63
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I think this thread should be moved to Politics and those who are so inclined can carry on with it...I'm out.
mysterygirl
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Can we get more ridiculous? Good lord..........
ziggy
Active Member
I don't understand what hostile pride is.
I suppose there should be some tolerance and understanding for those who are zealous with pride. Afterall, had there not been some men and women willing to die and be extremely zealous, we wouldn't have America - a place to be lucky to be born in.
It takes all types of people. Even those who need to insist that their ideals be heard and fight for freedom like our forefathers. There will always be those who don't have that kind of ambition or wear-with-all and that's cool. But first and foremost we have to start thinking about what is good for America and get back to that ideal; not Mexico, not the illegals, not even individuals but our Country.
And perhaps equally important is the acknowledgment that this country was founded as a republic and that states are empowered to govern themselves the way they see fit - because each state will have unique problems they must address.
Arizona is simply writing into their state statute what has already been on the books at the Fed. level with no enforcement. Arizona now has that need and they are doing what the Constitution allows them to do and adopt those laws into the state so that they have the power to enforce what the Federal Government has been refusing to.
I still wanna know what hostile pride is.
Kimberlyd125
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I totally agree with your entire post Ziggy.
I think it was wrong to tell students they couldn't wear certain colors -- that's just asking them to do it, in my opinion. Like Hermione Granger said in Harry Potter: Telling kids they weren't allowed to read a certain thing is the best way to get them to read it.
However, I don't see what the fuss is about celebrating other cultures' holidays. Unless you are 100% Native American, you have a culture that originates in another place. Whether your people came here a hundred years ago or last week, you can still celebrate where you came from. I see no problem with schools recognizing Cinco de Mayo or Chinese New Year or Saint Patrick's Day or anything else. I would rather my kids were exposed to other cultures in school than not; to ignore that we are a multicultural country just instills fear and distrust.
However, I don't see what the fuss is about celebrating other cultures' holidays. Unless you are 100% Native American, you have a culture that originates in another place. Whether your people came here a hundred years ago or last week, you can still celebrate where you came from. I see no problem with schools recognizing Cinco de Mayo or Chinese New Year or Saint Patrick's Day or anything else. I would rather my kids were exposed to other cultures in school than not; to ignore that we are a multicultural country just instills fear and distrust.
reportertype
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*sighs*
Where I live in my small town of about 6,000 people, my daughter's elementary school is about 53% Hispanic/Latino. There are a small hand full of students from various countries in Africa as well. In order to avoid chaos, it appears, without having been spoken, that in order to avoid such chaos, the school district does not have school in lieu of certain holidays, but does not actually name the holiday being commemorated on paper. I don't necessarily agree with the practice, but it does help to eliminate some of the potential backlash. I noticed that they had this last week.
What I have noticed is a good amount of this crap going on amongst the educators themselves. Although large diameter hoop earrings are banned, some staff are only asking white appearing females to remove them, while leaving those who appear to be of other races, wearing these types of earrings, alone entirely, citing to the white students that they are afraid of offending someone's ethnicity. I drew the line when my daughter came home from first grade, frustrated because she couldn't understand anything that they were learning in reading. I decided to get to the bottom of the matter and went to the school. Although I was assured that English was being taught in reading before other languages, when I finally got my hands on the paperwork that they'd been doing, I realized that in two months, she'd only been learning math and Spanish. I was angry. What the school didn't realize, is although my daughter may appear to be white, she in fact, is biracial. Her caregivers and family members that took care of her while I was at work, primarily speak Spanish. My daughter does know a great deal of the language, but simply is not comfortable in speaking it, even though we do encourage her to do so. She says that she is American, but her family comes from Mexico.
Although these high school students MAY have been trying to antoganize, I have to say that it is my opinion that they were no more trying to identify themselves than the population celebrating Cinco de Mayo were trying to identify themselves. When reading more and watching more about this, it was mentioned that many students went to city hall saying that they were disrespected. First, what does city hall have to do with the matter for heaven's sake? Secondly, I have to ask did this happen during school hours? If so, were the students suspended for skipping school? After all, three students were being threatened with suspension for wearing patriotic clothing on a certain day.. violating a rule that the principal had set, if the students were skipping class, are they going to be punished too? As for one video I saw, a student mentioned that Hispanic students don't go to the Fourth of July waving Mexican flags and the like. I truly hope that the school board didn't eat that up. Of course students don't do that... during the summer they are temporarily NOT students. And I've seen Hispanic families and communities celebrate both of these holidays. A small group of boys wears t-shirts because they feel patriotic to their country and left school or were suspended (Im still not clear on which occurred). And we have a large group of students that were being allowed to celebrate their culture, but felt threatened and/or disrespected by a tiny group trying to acknowledge theirs... Throw a tantrum and storm city hall because they feel disrespected. They should have let it be... MANY schools no longer publicly acknowledge any holiday.... they've either stopped having school those days or won't celebrate things such as Halloween, Easter, Valentine's Day, Veteran's Day, Martin Luther King Day, Columbas Day, etc because it offends some people's delicate ethnic or religious sensibilities.
It offends me and mine that my children can't just attend school, learn, and have even a tiny bit of good old fashioned fun along the way because some other parent doesn't want to have to explain to their children that it's against their beliefs not to celebrate this or that and that they don't want their kids to participate in that or feel left out or to be offended.
I could go on for hours...
*sigh*
Where I live in my small town of about 6,000 people, my daughter's elementary school is about 53% Hispanic/Latino. There are a small hand full of students from various countries in Africa as well. In order to avoid chaos, it appears, without having been spoken, that in order to avoid such chaos, the school district does not have school in lieu of certain holidays, but does not actually name the holiday being commemorated on paper. I don't necessarily agree with the practice, but it does help to eliminate some of the potential backlash. I noticed that they had this last week.
What I have noticed is a good amount of this crap going on amongst the educators themselves. Although large diameter hoop earrings are banned, some staff are only asking white appearing females to remove them, while leaving those who appear to be of other races, wearing these types of earrings, alone entirely, citing to the white students that they are afraid of offending someone's ethnicity. I drew the line when my daughter came home from first grade, frustrated because she couldn't understand anything that they were learning in reading. I decided to get to the bottom of the matter and went to the school. Although I was assured that English was being taught in reading before other languages, when I finally got my hands on the paperwork that they'd been doing, I realized that in two months, she'd only been learning math and Spanish. I was angry. What the school didn't realize, is although my daughter may appear to be white, she in fact, is biracial. Her caregivers and family members that took care of her while I was at work, primarily speak Spanish. My daughter does know a great deal of the language, but simply is not comfortable in speaking it, even though we do encourage her to do so. She says that she is American, but her family comes from Mexico.
Although these high school students MAY have been trying to antoganize, I have to say that it is my opinion that they were no more trying to identify themselves than the population celebrating Cinco de Mayo were trying to identify themselves. When reading more and watching more about this, it was mentioned that many students went to city hall saying that they were disrespected. First, what does city hall have to do with the matter for heaven's sake? Secondly, I have to ask did this happen during school hours? If so, were the students suspended for skipping school? After all, three students were being threatened with suspension for wearing patriotic clothing on a certain day.. violating a rule that the principal had set, if the students were skipping class, are they going to be punished too? As for one video I saw, a student mentioned that Hispanic students don't go to the Fourth of July waving Mexican flags and the like. I truly hope that the school board didn't eat that up. Of course students don't do that... during the summer they are temporarily NOT students. And I've seen Hispanic families and communities celebrate both of these holidays. A small group of boys wears t-shirts because they feel patriotic to their country and left school or were suspended (Im still not clear on which occurred). And we have a large group of students that were being allowed to celebrate their culture, but felt threatened and/or disrespected by a tiny group trying to acknowledge theirs... Throw a tantrum and storm city hall because they feel disrespected. They should have let it be... MANY schools no longer publicly acknowledge any holiday.... they've either stopped having school those days or won't celebrate things such as Halloween, Easter, Valentine's Day, Veteran's Day, Martin Luther King Day, Columbas Day, etc because it offends some people's delicate ethnic or religious sensibilities.
It offends me and mine that my children can't just attend school, learn, and have even a tiny bit of good old fashioned fun along the way because some other parent doesn't want to have to explain to their children that it's against their beliefs not to celebrate this or that and that they don't want their kids to participate in that or feel left out or to be offended.
I could go on for hours...
*sigh*
tlcya
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You know what? You are 100% correct. I should have said American but my focus was not on nationality but rather me NOT being Latino and yet expecting them to bow to my continent's holiday while in a predominately brown country. The conflict described in this thread is not between Americans and Mexicans, it is between a small group of predominately white students and Latinos all of whom are Americans. But you are right, I should have used the term American as it could obviously be seen as *shudder* racist to refer to myself as white. The politically correct police will come and haul me away if I do not choose my words more carefully. I stand corrected and apologize.
tlcya
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Cyan
Just reached your post in my catching up and the thank you button was not enough. Great post.
I wish the schools would just focus more on teaching tolerance, unity and acceptance and less on throwing a bandaid on the immediate situation. My kids have white friends, brown friends and daughter would be THRILLED if she could find a purple one! But seriously, my kids just see other kids, not their race or culture. Adults cause these problems amongst our children.
Children are not born hateful or intolerant. If the white students (can't call them American because the Latino students are Americans as well) are disrespectful to the Latino students it is not about Drinko de Mayo, it is about racial tensions that obviously exist year round and probably a learned attitude from their parents.
Why can't schools foster more conflict resolution, form peer groups, have speakers come in, etc. so that the discord could be addressed in a lasting way and perhaps resolved?
Just reached your post in my catching up and the thank you button was not enough. Great post.
I wish the schools would just focus more on teaching tolerance, unity and acceptance and less on throwing a bandaid on the immediate situation. My kids have white friends, brown friends and daughter would be THRILLED if she could find a purple one! But seriously, my kids just see other kids, not their race or culture. Adults cause these problems amongst our children.
Children are not born hateful or intolerant. If the white students (can't call them American because the Latino students are Americans as well) are disrespectful to the Latino students it is not about Drinko de Mayo, it is about racial tensions that obviously exist year round and probably a learned attitude from their parents.
Why can't schools foster more conflict resolution, form peer groups, have speakers come in, etc. so that the discord could be addressed in a lasting way and perhaps resolved?