LITERANISTA Dialogue on Multicultural Books, Tech & Life

1 Comment

1. 

   Reply Anonymous   •   17 years ago

   Hola Literanista,

   Thanks for bringing attention to this, I’ve called my friends and relatives in NYC– who’ve been wanting for a long time to purchase some Spanish-language books esp. children’s books para la proxima Navidad– and sort of urged them to speed up their plans!

   I hope that Latinos in Nueva York and elsewhere are helping to confront this problem with Libreria Lectorum, maybe wealthy Latinos providing financial support or even offering to help take over operations there. I know, it’s hard sometimes to run a bookstore, and independent bookstores have it tough these days.

   Still, this is especially irritating because if anything, this is the best time ever for Spanish-language books and bookstores– there really is a stable and rapidly growing Spanish-language community especially in traditional Latino homelands like all the Southwestern states and Florida, where Spanish has full legal equivalency with English stretching back to the treaties after the Mexican War and Florida clashes. (Even Anglos from a legal standpoint have to know Spanish and so many of them are patronizing these bookstores as well!) NYC is outside of this zone, but still, they should be able to take advantage of this general movement.

   Recent events in particular should be reminding us that we’ll only survive here in the USA by sticking together, supporting each other and supporting our people, our Latino businesses and our culture. Without this, we’re easy targets for the Minutemen and other Anglo haters who want to attack our culture and turn us into their easily manipulated slaves.

   FWIW, en las semanas recientes there’s been a lot more discussion lately about Latino homeschooling, which is a great idea. The US public schools, at least the ones that teach in English only (the Spanish-English schools seem to a good deal better), have become absolutely atrocious, full of crime, terrible teaching, drugs, weapons, unhealthy environments and other social ills. We are shortchanging our next generation in the public schools here, and the Anglos and African-Americans have both figured this out. With home-schooling, we can provide a much healthier environment for our kids, more conducive to learning, away from all the crime and drugs, can provide much of the instruction en español (which is really a must to get a good job anyway in addition to reinforcing our heritage– very good textbooks in history, science and mathematics de Mexico y de América del Sur), better diet, better peer interactions and even athletic opportunities.

   Es mi esperanza que sigamos apoyar nuestra gente en nuestra comunidad, incluyendo los que ofrecen los libros de alta calidad para los niños y adultos. Otra vez, vamos a sobrevivir aquí solamente si unirnos y apoyarnos, en los negocios, en la educación y en todos otros aspectos de los retos que enfrentamos!