Hispanics changing the culture of the city - interesting article. seems particularly relevant to me these days - personally i LIKE diversity, learning about new and different cultures, yet i find the people around me still stick to racist, dumb hick ideas...

a woman at the flower power cookout yesterday made a STUPID comment about "grass" yesterday - she said not to use that word around the mexicans, because they'll assume you're talking about the stuff you smoke, not the stuff you mow. excuse me?!?!? what was even worse, she said this with maggie sitting right across from her. maggie is hispanic. she handled it very well, speaking to whatsherface in espanol and making it pretty obvious that she didn't appreciate her comment. maggie made a good point when we talked about it later - in this town, it's usually the mexicans doing the lawn care. not only was it a rascist stereotype, it was one that had no basis in reality.

and then there's work. apparently there's a large hispanic population in nashville tennessee as well, because we publish a special insert in our version of the trader down there - it's all in spanish. my boss made a comment once about "morally objecting" to working on it, because if they come to our country, they should speak our language. never mind the fact that we all speak english and not native american.

one argument i've heard before is that the u.s. is the Melting Pot - if they're gonna come here, they should assimilate completely with how we live, speaking our language and such. what a crock. i don't think the melting pot means everyone should melt completely - ya lose lots of flavor when that happens.