Juanes tiene la camisa blanca - and so do tens of thousands of others who want PEACE.





A message of peace from the Colombian-Venezuelan border .... initiated by Juanes, joined by Alejandro Sanz, Juan Luis Guerra, Carlos Vives, Miguel Bosé and Ricardo Montaner ...

I was at the Juanes concert at Madison Square Garden on March 6, and we were a little surprised that he mentioned the Colombian-Venezuelan-Ecuadorean situation only once, and seemingly in passing, rather speaking out a lot during the concert.

But I also realized at the time that Juanes seems more comfortable sending his message through his songs and his actions, rather than just through speeches. Indeed, his songs have always reflected that message, and he did speak through his songs that night.

And then two days later, he spoke definitively through his actions, by announcing that he was organizing this concert. In less than a week, this is what he pulled together.


Miles de personas asisten hoy domingo vestidas de blanco en las adyacencias de un puente fronterizo entre Colombia y Venezuela para el concierto gratuito denominado "Paz sin Fronteras" promovido por Juanes y al que invitó a media docena de artistas internacionales.

And here’s Carlos Vives speaking -- I love his message, too, and how he shares it.




I know it will take more than music and white shirts to bring about peace in this region ..... but I also know that the only way to start is by creating a critical mass of people working together for a positive change.

¡Viva Juanes, and all the other artists who participated in the Concierto por la Paz sin Fronteras! Let’s hope the positive spirit generated here carries over into more positive action in the future, by each and every person who attended the concert ... or watched it on TV ... or saw it on the internet ... or read about it in this blog.

VERY worth viewing .... wow. EXCELLENT. Good for Geraldo ... he is so right that racism is at the heart of this debate.

Geraldo vs. O'Reilly, Clip 1

Geraldo vs. O'Reilly, Clip 2


In the middle of the first clip, listen to what O'Reilly says when Geraldo compares the Irish, English, etc. getting 76% of the visas allowed in 1924, while the Italians got 3% and the Mexicans got 0%. Go to minute 2:38 to see the O'Reilly response ..... !!!!!!!!!!!!!! (I literally jumped out of my chair when I heard what O'Reilly said -- ask my friend Liz, who was with me -- and wanted to reach through the screen and grab him. I am still speechless.)

In the second clip, they really go at each other.

For the record .... My grandparents all came here in the early 1900s. It happened to be "legal" at the time. But had it been "illegal" .... I'm sure they would have found a way to come anyway. In one case they were literally starving (no work, no food, no future, no hope, etc. in Sicily) and in the other they were victims of religious persecution (Jews from Russia and Poland). People don't come here to take advantage and be criminals ... they come here to make a future for themselves and their families. And in the process, they make enormous contributions to this nation.

I hope that this negative propaganda will stop, and that these racist attitudes and policies start to change once the administration does.

In the meantime, look for the book "His Panic", by Geraldo Rivera ...

This wouldn't be funny if it weren't so true. And the fact that it is true isn't funny at all. Still, enjoy the laugh!

I love teaching because I love the kids, I love the language, I love sharing my passion for it all .... and because I just can't make this stuff up.

On the midterm this week, the students had to define the word "antepasado," which means "ancestor."

One student wrote:

El antepasado - "El antepasado es una comida muy deliciosa."

I guess he was confusing it with antipasto?

I don't know, but it made my week. (Maybe I'm just tired and a little punchy after grading all those midterms?)

I was so thrilled by BBC Mundo's "¿Hablas español?" project that I blogged about it several times, and wrote them a number of messages and comments along their route.

It turns out that one of my main comments (and the main focus of many of my blog posts, my videos, my teaching, my writing, and my mission in general) - that Spanish is no longer a foreign language in the United States - became the main slogan or theme of their trip.

So I was delighted when José Baig, the coordinator of the project, wrote to me and asked if he could interview me about teaching Spanish in the United States.

Here's the result ....

And you can now continue to follow José's observations on the impact of Spanish in the English-speaking world, on the BBC Mundo "¿Hablas español?" blog.

José says they will be returning to the United States next year for a "¿Tú también hablas español?" tour. I'm looking forward to meeting them this time!

AMAZING concert ....

.... and what an opening!





When the wall exploded, the Garden went wild.

(This video is from the Chicago concert.)

These guys have been around for over 20 years (really, almost 30), and I'm so glad they've stuck together. They just keep getting better and better.

I can't stop laughing at this .... and you know what? It really shows how much you can communicate with some very simple words!

September is always such a busy month, with many new beginnings ... especially this year, when this month began with taking my oldest child to college on the opposite coast and then starting a new university-level teaching position ....

And speaking of new beginnings, I have always said that just as a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, the road to fluency in Spanish begins with a single word: Hola.

So I was delighted to read about an initiative to start a new holiday: "Hola Day", started by Myelita Melton, a Spanish teacher in North Carolina.

Celebrated on October 1st, right in the middle of Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15th through October 15th), Hola Day is designed to foster a greater appreciation for the use of the Spanish language in the US. It honors both native speakers and non-native speakers who commit themselves to learning Spanish as a second language and using it in their daily lives.

Many communities and states across the United States are signing on, with a proclamation.

"Participating in Hola Day is simple," says Melton. "We are asking everyone in America to say something in Spanish to someone else on Oct. 1. What you say can be as simple as 'hola' and 'adiós' or as complicated as you wish. Also, the person you speak to doesn't have to speak Spanish; the whole point is that you do."

I love the idea, even if I didn't think of it myself! Myelita definitely gets my Viva la Chispa award!

Is advertising coffee in a foreign language really going to undermine our culture and our values? (If so, someone had better tell Starbucks to take the words "grande" and "macchiato" off its menu.) Do we need a law to tell us that English is the primary language of this country? And are we really threatened by bilingual families, when most bilingual children spend the majority of their day speaking English?

Apparently, some people would answer "yes" to all of the above.

My latest op-ed, All Languages Spoken Here, was just published today, and is about precisely this issue ... and how the escalating discrimination and negativity against immigrants and their languages is hastening the loss of the precious linguistic and cultural resources of our immigrant communities -- precisely at the time when we need those resources most.

By the way, the "Bogota" mentioned in the article is Bogota, New Jersey (not Bogotá, Colombia).

Because of space limitations, I couldn't include more about the personal losses that go along with this loss of language, or about how strongly I feel that everyone should be studying foreign languages, learning about other cultures, and increasing both their local and their global multicultural awareness. Fortunately, there was another op-ed in the same paper yesterday about promoting multicultural education, so at least that point of view is out there at the same time. I'll write more about the personal losses - what I see as the loss of culture, identity and soul - at a later point.

An interesting coincidence is that I wrote this article, mentioning Bogota's mayor who took offense at the "café helado" sign, a few weeks ago. And then yesterday, I found this article in the New York Times, about how Steve Lonegan - Bogota mayor and immigration opponent - is the brother of Bryan Lonegan, an immigration rights activist ... and they are the grandsons of an Italian immigrant. VERY interesting article.

I start a new Spanish teaching position on Friday, and I hope I will still have time to write about the intersection of language, culture, identity and soul ... issues which are all so important to me.

I just got back from San Diego, and as always when I'm in the Southwest - and especially California - I feel like the entire experience is a Spanish lesson.

And I'm not even talking about how much Spanish you may hear on the streets or on the television or radio. Just the street and town names alone would be a great vocabulary practice.

In fact, I have often done a matching game in my classes, to help them see that many names that they may think of as just town names or place names (Los Angeles, San Francisco, Amarillo, etc. -and my personal favorite - Cape Canaveral, from cañaveral - sugar cane field) and even state names (Colorado, Nevada, Florida, etc.) actually have a real meaning in Spanish.

And not only is it a great vocabulary lesson; it also gives them an opportunity to see how the Southwest and Florida were originally colonized ... and by whom.