The Great Ganesha

Interesting article from a couple of days ago by Tunku Varadarajan in the WSJ (read: conservative). In spite of the overt right-leaning, I think I agree with him. Political correctness has gone too far, crossing over into sectarian politicking…

On Tuesday, Antonio Villaraigosa, the Democratic alcalde (or mayor) of Los Angeles, delivered to his city a “Respuesta al Estado de la Nación”–a response in Spanish to President Bush’s State of the Union address. This alternative discourse, this act of ethno-political affectation, should lead us all to think upon some questions: What, and where, are the limits to civic Otherness in America?

Why not a gay response? A Teamster response? A vegan response? A gangsta response? More nitty-grittily: Why not a response in Farsi or Korean–languages spoken by people toward whom Mr. Villaraigosa has no fewer mayoral duties than he does toward his Hispanophones? There is, also, a radical question from which there should be no glib escape: If response there must be from the mayor of Los Angeles, why not one in plain old English?

I am a first-generation migrant to this country. I believe that in settling abroad, foreigners make a brutal contract with their land of adoption. They may speak their language, eat their food and practice their religion–but at home or by private arrangement. That is as far as I would go with multiculturalism. All else–including an insistence on a public affirmation of ethnic frills and fancies–cripples the process of integration.

That’s the first 3 paras, more here ($$).

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