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Old 10-17-2011, 11:53 AM
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Jeanfromfillmore Jeanfromfillmore is offline
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Default Texas High School Students Recite Mexican Pledge of Allegiance

Video: Texas High School Students Recite Mexican Pledge of Allegiance
Your outrageously outrageous story du jour, via The Blaze:

Students in a Texas public high school were made to stand up and recite the Mexican national anthem and Mexican pledge of allegiance as part of a Spanish class assignment, but the school district maintains there was nothing wrong with the lesson. It happened last month in an intermediate Spanish class at Achieve Early College High School in McAllen, Texas — a city located about 10 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border.
Wearing red, white and green, students had to memorize the Mexican anthem and pledge and stand up and recite them in individually in front of the class. That didn’t go over well with sophomore Brenda Brinsdon. The 15-year-old sat down and refused to participate. She also caught it all on video:
If you want to skip ahead, the flag salute starts around 1:30, and the anthem signing kicks off at the 3:00 mark. Confession: I'm not particularly bothered by any of this. The events transpired in a Spanish class right around Mexican independence day, and the school district's foreign language curriculum calls for "knowledge and understanding" of other cultures. When the "whistleblower" student's family objected to this portion of the lesson, she was given an alternative assignment. Compared to the genuinely inappropriate spectacles that play out in public schools across the country, this row just doesn't raise my ire. In fact, it seems pretty harmless. Am I missing something?
In case you were curious, here are the words to the Mexican flag salute:

Bandera de México,
Legado de Nuestros Héroes,
Símbolo de la Unidad
de nuestros Padres
y de nuestros Hermanos.

Te prometemos:

Ser siempre fieles
a los principios de
la libertad y la justicia,
que hacen de Nuestra
Patria la Nación
Independiente, humana
y generosa a la que
entregamos nuestra
existencia.

A rough English translation:

Mexican flag
legacy from our heroes
symbol of the unity of our ancestors
and our brothers

We promise you:

To be always loyal
to the principles of freedom and justice
that makes this an independent,
human and generous nation ,
to which we dedicate our existence.

No mention of God, so at least it's probably ACLU-approved.


UPDATE: Tina Korbe presents a possible compromise:

If the point is to memorize and recite a passage in Spanish (it was a Spanish class, after all), recite a translation of the U.S. pledge. That’s what we did in my Spanish 3 class in high school and it stuck with me: Juro fidelidad a la bandera de los Estados Unidos de America y a la república que simboliza, una nación, bajo Dios, indivisible con libertad y justicia para todos.
Texas students taught to recite Mexican pledge of allegiance
In the name of educating students about a foreign culture, a teacher in McAllen, Tex., required students in her intermediate Spanish class to memorize and individually recite the Mexican national anthem and pledge of allegiance — but one student objected, catching the attention of the school district and The Blaze, which reported the story this morning.
Fifteen-year-old Brenda Brinsdon refused to complete the assignment and, instead, complained to the teacher, principal and, eventually, with the help of her father, William, the school district superintendent. The response of the teacher? Reyna Santos explained that she grew up in Mexico and loved the country. The response of the principal? Yvette Cavazo told Brinsdon it was part of the curriculum and she should participate. The response of the school district superintendent? School district spokesman Mark May told The Blaze the assignment was no different than memorizing a poem or a passage of Shakespeare.
Brinsdon was particularly bothered by the timing of the assignment, which came last month during “Freedom Week,” the week after the Tenth Anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. In fact, the assignment came on Constitution Day itself — the same day as Mexico’s Independence Day.
Said Brinsdon’s father: “Our kids don’t even know the [American] national anthem and here we are … teaching them to memorize and perform the national anthem for Mexico. I just think it’s so backwards.”
He also objected to May’s characterization of the assignment as just another memorization exercise, saying that that cheapens the notion of a pledge. “You‘re taking their allegiance and their oath from Mexico and cheapening it just as a grade or words [that] don’t mean anything,” he said.
To the school district’s credit, Brinsdon wasn’t forced to participate: She was given an alternate assignment — an essay on the history of the Mexican revolution.
Here’s a thought: Why not just study the Mexican pledge of allegiance? Read it in a textbook, diagram its sentences, dissect its meaning. Certainly it makes sense to study the culture of other countries. But leave the out-loud recitation of any kind of loyalty oath for the U.S. pledge of allegiance (which, interestingly enough, is increasingly less recited in U.S. schools). You can bet plenty of students in non-English-speaking competitive countries (a) learn English, (b) study the political, economic and cultural systems of the United States and (c) never recite the U.S. pledge of allegiance in school.
If the point is to memorize and recite a passage in Spanish (it was a Spanish class, after all), recite a translation of the U.S. pledge. That’s what we did in my Spanish 3 class in high school and it stuck with me …
Juro fidelidad a la bandera de los Estados Unidos de America y a la república que simboliza, una nación bajo Dios, indivisible con libertad y justicia para todos.
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