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Star-studded. Star-Spangled. In Spanish?

By Oscar Avila
Chicago Tribune

April 26, 2006, 8:24 AM EDT

A plan to enlist Mexican pop diva Gloria Trevi, reggaeton star Tito El Bambino and other Latin musicians to record a Spanish-language pop version of "The Star Spangled Banner" is being touted by organizers as a way immigrants can show their devotion to their new country.

But like most every aspect of the immigration debate, the symbolism is in the ear of the beholder. The idea of the nation's anthem in a foreign tongue is beginning to elicit a chorus of dissonant voices.

In coming days, producers plan to send the single to Spanish-language radio stations in Chicago and nationwide. The proceeds from "Nuestro Himno," or "Our Anthem," will benefit groups organizing massive marches nationwide in support of legalizing illegal immigrants.

By embracing a song that symbolizes American values, immigrants hope to reinforce the message that their desire is to be part of this country, regardless of legal status. In that vein, some organizers have urged participants in a next Monday's march in the Loop to bring only American flags and leave Mexican banners at home.

"In our countries, national anthems are a beautiful expression of who we are," said Juan Carlos Ruiz, general coordinator of the Washington-based National Capital Immigration Coalition. "Our immigrant communities want to be a part of this country. We want the American dream."

But conservative columnists and groups that oppose illegal immigration say the song is a symbolic false note. For them, the project symbolizes a frightening prospect: that Hispanic immigrants do not want to assimilate but want to remake America on their terms.

Executives with Urban Box Office, a New York-based record label and marketing company, came up with the idea for the recording earlier this month. The project snowballed, and about 20 artists now will record their parts in studios from Madrid to Mexico, CEO Adam Kidron said.

The song is a rough translation of the anthem, supplemented by an English-language chant by preteen rapper P-Star. She chants: "See this can't happen, not only about the Latins/Asians, blacks, and whites and all they do is adding/more and more let's not start a war/with all these hard workers/they can't help where they were born."

The single will be part of an album called "Somos Americanos," or "We Are Americans." The album likely won't be released until next month, but the backlash over the song has already started.

Syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin, in decrying the project, wrote: "Whose anthem, whose flag, whose country is it anyway?" Listeners of conservative radio shows and groups that oppose illegal immigration have seized on the issue, too, and let the studio know.

On the popular Free Republic conservative blog, one reader lamented: "Welcome to the United States of Mexico." Another added: "That makes me sick. Real Americans speak English." A reader of the Immigration Watchdog blog wondered: "'Our Anthem'? My freaking head is about to explode!"

"I've had more hate mail in the last 24 hours than I've experienced in my whole life," the recording company's Kidron said.

The back and forth over the anthem mirrors an ongoing subplot over flags that emerged in dozens of marches that have drawn millions nationwide. Protesters are urging Congress to pass a bill to legalize most of the nation's 11 million illegal immigrants in addition to backing away from workplace immigration raids.

From the start, organizers of a massive March 10 march in Chicago urged participants not to antagonize opponents by carrying the Mexican flag. The result was that the American flag dominated, with some marchers bringing posters of Martin Luther King Jr. and George Washington. Young children led the crowd at Federal Plaza in the Pledge of Allegiance--in English.

But as marches moved to the border states in late March, the tone changed. Protesters were more defiant. The crowds in Los Angeles and other cities featured a sea of Mexican flags.

U.S. Rep. Virgil Goode (R-Va.) fumed to the Richmond Times-Dispatch: "If you are here illegally, and you want to fly the Mexican flag, go to Mexico to fly the Mexican flag!" In Arizona, Apache Junction High School students burned the Mexican flag after classmates raised it above their school.

After the rebukes, a follow-up series of marches April 10 primarily featured American flags.

But critics of illegal immigration say the American flags are merely a distraction to the in-your-face rhetoric of illegal immigrants who insist that the U.S. is their land.

"It's one thing to wave a Mexican flag at a restaurant or at your house. It's another thing when you bring it into the public discourse," said Joseph Turner, executive director of Save Our State, a California nonprofit group that opposes illegal immigration. "When you come to our country, you'd better adopt our values, our culture, our customs and our language. Period."

Still, immigration experts and the marchers themselves say that, if the symbols appear muddled, it is likely because national loyalties are often a complicated notion.

Julie Santos, secretary of a Chicago group called United Latino Family, said her members are families in which some members are U.S. citizens and others are illegal immigrants threatened with deportation. In a mixture of fear and pride, families that normally carry the Mexican flag and the Virgin of Guadalupe at group events brandished American flags at the March rally, Santos said.

"I carried an American flag because I am proud of this country. But your descent is something that you can't take away from anyone, whether you're Polish, Irish or whatever," she said. "No one should be put down because they are carrying their home country's flag. We can express ourselves in any way. That's the wonderful part of being in America."

Maria de los Angeles Torres, director of Latin American and Latino studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said technology and proximity have allowed Mexican immigrants to retain their cultural identities more closely than many previous immigrant waves.

But Torres said Chicagoans have always retained a "hyphenated" cultural identity, no matter their background. Americans, she said, should look at the desire of marchers to work and participate politically as consistent with American values.

"I worry that people feel that they are so vulnerable that they can't express both identities," she said. "The conception that you have to leave behind your culture to become an American is a most un-American conception of political citizenship."

Star-studded. Star-Spangled. In Spanish? (http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-425starspangledbanner,0,5185911,print.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines)

My note; English is the language of America, not spanish.