John Quiñones

It has been a while since I posted anything, you know with the holidays and all…speaking of which, over the holidays I say TV news personality John Quiñones at my parish.  He was attending the Spanish Mass.  It was pretty cool to see a celebrity, one of my choir members pointed him out to me.  It reminded me when I saw Mr. Quiñones on TV talking about how Latino kids need to learn to speak correct English in order to get ahead. He was a bit sarcastic, saying something like: “You won’t get a TV job by saying ‘I chur like eating at shurshes shicken’”.  A friend of mine, who is a bilingual ed teacher was really offended.  She felt that he was asking kids to give up their culture.  I disagreed.  Mr. Q makes a very good point, we do need to help kids learn that there are certain ways to behave, dress, speak, in this Anglo dominated society that is necessary in order to get a good job, etc.   Why keep our kids in the dark about this?  In my opinion this has nothing to do with culture.  I bet when Mr. Q comes home to San Anto he can “spanglish”as good as anybody.  But in TV land it is a different story.  Thank you Mr. Quiñones for pointing out the reality of the situation, by seeing you at Mass (and the Spanish Mass to boot!) it shows me that you understand your culture and learning the cues of the dominant culture does not make you appreciate yours any less.  ¡Dale shine, ese! (a Spanglish term of encouragement)