Makes me want to throw a Jessica Alba party for 16 de Septiembre! (lol.) Well, I guess my grudge against Ms Alba has lessened considerably, though I would never watch her in those moving picture things. I hear they call them "talkies" now.

I guess there's no excuse for me not learning Spanish, then. Darn! It's not that I dislike Spanish... it's that I always feel like such a weirdo gring@-tejan@ whenever I speak it. Writing it is another story... (more fun that writing in English personally)

Yea, I never weighed in on that little controversy because I sensed Alba was really struggling with her "identity." Since she picked a mate who has an African American parent, I never thought it was about "color" per se. I am rooting for her, too!

i hear you meep. it can be hard when its tied to self-image, identity, ethnicity, the language thing. that's actually the crux of the last "Skin of My Soul" that i'[m going to write. what it was like to go volunteer to finally be the one who can't speak his mind or word his thoughts fluently.

--

hey carmz, yeah i never thought it was about "color." just about self-loathing of mexicanness that the dominant cultura programs us with. which, of course, has nothing to do with whether or not we date black people or marry them or whatnot.

I hate celebrity culture with a passion that borders on the unreasonable, but the hostility towards Spanish is a real, pervasive and wretched aspect of racism. (I remember a case out of Texas where a court denied a Mexican mother custody in a divorce because she spoke Spanish as her first language. If the language had been French, I'd bet any amount of money that ruling would have been changed.) If a flavor-of-the week idol is doing something to undermine a bad meme in our culture, though, that's a good thing and I'm happy for it. (Like I said, borders on the unreasonable.)

I'm not much for personal info displays on the web, but I will mention that I studied Spanish for five years, total, in junior and high school in Texas, and I can't speak it to save my life. I bet I learned more Spanish from Sesame Street. Draw the conclusions you will.

If Ms. Alba can brush up her Spanish, there's no reason why I can't. I've got less excuse not to. I'm on a campus every day and don't have a screaming newborn. I totally get where she's coming from, both in that earlier interview and now. When your immediate Mexican ancestors were assimilated into white culture, by the time you're born, you feel like an impostor when you try to learn/discover what was taken from you (at least I do, and I'm guessing Jessica did too).

!Orale Yesica!

YO have trouble accepting the 'brown pride' ideology because there really isn't a reason to have pride in an ethnicity. you are who you are,,, and that doesn't mean you is less or more than anyone else based solely on the color of your skin. pride should be taken in the type of action one takes meanwhile one exists on this planet. there shouldn't even exist human pride because are one sick species who fucks over every other species on this planet because we believe we are more worthy-- or maybe it is just our selfish egocentric nature.

But if i was jessia i wo uld teach me daughter chinese rather than spanish. What useful is an illusory construct we call 'culture' when in america it is impossible to escape the culture that is influenced by corporaion's propaganda. It is inevitable that her daughter will succumb to the manufactured culture that defines Americans regardless of ethnicity. Chinese because if you learn to speak chinese they you are then able to communicate with a large majority of earth's population-- imagine the power that gives a person to influence others if one were so inclined.

-Algeria

if you read any of the first paragraph i wrote here or the links, you didn't understand them. sorry about that.

Hmm, NOW she wants to brush up on her Spanish? Huh? Shouldn't she have started "brushing up" nine months ago, before her little girl was born? Guess we'll have to wait until a few years from now to see whether or not little Honor Alba has learned any Spanish from her mamá.

you wouldn't believe the pushback i got from writing this post! i was surprised. got emails n such.

okay, sure. i admit it, she won't know any spanish by the time her kid is born...but if she tried, in two years when the kid is paying a lot of attention to language, she could be speaking it!

i'm just laughing.

i was sort of using the idea as a reason to highlight things i find important. i ADMIT IT! i was uuuuusing her!

i like to reinforce certain things in here, that are not, out there. you know? and if she is a celebrity, and she is pushing this message, it is a good thing! it is good for someone out there to hear it. it could give one or two or more people pride in what they are. that's not so bad. i know it's looking at the brighter side of it. but damn. she's hot.

rude algeria: Sure, you can learn chinese, but it doesn't mean you'll be accepted by Chinese people.

(I know. Coincidentally enough, I gave it a shot. My Mandarin is probably worse than my Spanish, though. My chinese friends and I had a running gag, that confused others to no end, that people kept mistaking me for Chinese. "Wait -- you're not from Beijing?!" If you knew my melanin content and atrocious accent in Mandarin, you'd get the joke.)

Just because culture is a construct doesn't mean it isn't real. Justice, honor, and love are all constructs, too.

And isn't Spanish an advantage for her kid because her relatives might speak it? I'm gonna lay odds that they don't speak Mandarin. So isn't it good to gain insight into one's family? Or is family one of those constructs we should dismiss in order to reject corporate culture? ;-)

(But, sure, generally speaking, I'd agree that generic "american" culture contains a lot of suck.)

also we have to remember that kid will grow up one day. and look around at this construct we call american culture. and will be cognizant of their own place in it. and judge who they are by that. and if their own family has shied away from the cultural markers that would normally identify them or bond them to others who share affiliation of name/background/ethnicity, there will be a reason they did so. and if that reason is shame, then the child will own that.

It fascinates me how having a baby can bring about an unexpected shift of one kind or another (not always positive, but often so). I remember when my water broke with my firstborn, I actually saw stars and thought, "Every human comes this way. I'm about to join the sisterhood of mothers." And truly, my life after that was never the same. I didn't always do it as well as it needed to be done or as well as I wish I had, but I was never again able to forget that I now HAD TO consider somebody besides my Self. I once read somewhere that, in the end, childrearing does less for children than it does for parents in terms of who "grows up."

that was beautiful.

This is a nice thing to hear, I agree.