I went to the DMV this morning on my state mandated furlough day to register my newer car. After standing in line this morning, I finally have motivation to learn Spanish. Until now, I resisted it because I felt that I was enabling them if I didn’t encourage them to learn English. Now, I feel like I’m enabling them because they use it clandestinely for purposes contrary to civil society, and I want them to know that just because I’m Nordic doesn’t mean I don’t know what they’re doing.
During most of the half hour I stood there, I listened to the two women behind me comment on other people in line. Although I know barely any Spanish, I know enough Italian and enough about laughter to know that they were mocking and commenting on everyone and everything around them with a derrogatory aire. When I turned around to take a closer look, I couldn’t figure for the life of me how they get off condescendingly judging everyone around them. They don’t look healthy or pretty or successful. I guess they’re just bitter and like most bullies find it helpful to lift themselves up by putting others down.
Shortly before they finally let us in, a woman came down the line repeating the same opening line asking if people spoke Spanish. True to form, when she came to me, she walked right on by. I was profiled, and I felt it somewhat racist that she just assumed that the fellow in front of me and I didn’t speak Spanish because we were white (he looks like Irish ancestry to me). I didn’t catch much of it, but it was canvassing, which I’m pretty sure is not allowed on public property like that, but she didn’t care because it was in Spanish, and none of us complained. If I did this in line and only spoke with people who spoke English, they would decry it as profiliing and racist. Apparently it’s compassionate to balkanize people as long as you’re not white.
After many years owning three levels of Rosetta Stone for Spanish, I’m finally motivated to start. I want to know what they’re doing, and I don’t necessarily want them to know I understand them. Like these women, they will probably assume I don’t speak Spanish because I’m white, sort of like the French tourist in Innsbruck figured he could avoid talking to me by saying in French that he only spoke French. Unfortunately for him, I spoke some French.
How can we be one people if we continue to do things that draw lines of separation between us and our neighbors? How can this people expect to coalesce around the common civil good until we have things in common? How can we possibly be equal if we continue to allow these things to render us anything but equal? I find it expressly repugnant that so many of our leaders talk about inclusion while practicing policies that lead to exclusion instead. My Faith may add a second Spanish ward to our building. While I understand for the elderly patrons of the Faith, most of the youth are bilingual and don’t need it. There are no Danish congregations or Gaelic ones or German ones in this nation, because my ancestors became one with their neighbors rather than setting up enclaves.
When I lived in Austria, I was motivated to learn German so that I would not have to depend on others who spoke my language. Unlike this country, there aren’t as many native English speakers in Austria, and so it served me well to do so. President Gerald Roth of the Salzburg Stake paid me a great compliment by speaking to me in German because he knew my German was fluent enough that I would understand, something I never saw him do with any other missionary from America. I find it sad that these people refuse to join us but have the benefits of our society, and I was offended to listen to them mock others openly thinking that nobody saw them in secret. Be warned. El gato no manejah el carro.
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