The Spanish Star Spangled Banner - The Mexican Flag-Wavers Take The Next Step
Adam Kidron, a British born music producer, is releasing a Spanish version of the Star Spangled Banner to coincide with Monday’s nationwide boycott/protest by illegal Mexicans. The song features names such as Wyclef Jean, hip-hop artist Pitbull, Carlos Ponce and Olga Tanon.
Kidron may mean well, in a soft-headed liberal sort of way, but this latest effort to make a case for illegal immigrants is sure to do nothing more than fan the flames. To make matters worse, a version will be released in June with modified lyrics such as, “These kids have no parents, cause all of these mean laws … let’s not start a war with all these hard workers, they can’t help where they were born.”
Kidron defends the heresy by pointing out that the melody for the Star Spangled Banner was lifted from an English drinking song. If you’re trying to find the logic in that line of reasoning, don’t bother, it’s not there. When Francis Scott Key was so inspired by the sight of the giant American flag still flying over Fort McHenry that he penned the words to what would later become our National Anthem, it was not unusual to borrow the tune of an English song since we were essentially an English colony that had recently won independence.
That Kidron draws a parallel between that event and his willful desecration of of our sacred National Anthem for the supposed benefit of individuals who mock our laws shows how contemptuous these people are of America.
When this song hits the radio, the effect will most likely be similar to the effect of illegal Mexicans waving Mexican flags in open defiance of U.S. sovereignty. Whatever the intention might be, the message could not be any more clear, “We are stealing your country and we are stealing your National Anthem too!”
The central issue here is not immigration and the vast majority of Americans know it, although they might not neccessarily be able to articulate it. However, the concept is simple - entering our country illegally by sneaking across the border, then demanding citizenship replete with all the perks is not even close to a reasonable definition of immigration.
Then on top of that, changing the lyrics of our National Anthem and singing it in Spanish seems less like an appeal for leniency from the American people than as a warning shot across the bow. We Americans by and large may have gotten soft over decades of affluence, comfort and safety, but that condition may already be on the fast track to a quick change.
Even President Bush, who for whatever reason has sided with the illegals in the past, has come out swinging on this one, “I think the national anthem ought to be sung in English, and I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English and they ought to learn to sing the national anthem in English.”
April 28th, 2006 at 4:46 pm
“We are stealing your country and we are stealing your National Anthem too!â€Â
Yes, which we Anglos stole from the French, Spanish, and most horribly…THE NATIVE AMERICAN.
Uh huh.
May 2nd, 2006 at 10:04 am
I disagree. How do you explain that the US State Dept in 1919 commissioned the National Anthem in Spanish? And that it still posts those at the government web site?http://usinfo.state.gov/esp/home/topics/us_society_values/national_symbols/anthem_spanish.html
It’s even been translated into Samoan http://pidp.eastwestcenter.org/pireport/2006/January/01-26-18.htm
There’s nothing wrong with the National Anthem being sung in Spanish.
May 7th, 2006 at 11:22 am
I understand the words have not merely been translated into
Spanish, but the words have been changed. What are these ‘new’
words? In English,if you please.
W. T.