I don't really understand the outrage over the national anthem being sung in Spanish, however more people need to know that this in fact is nothing new.
From the Philadelphia Enquirer, Posted on Sun, May. 07, 2006 U.S. prepared a Spanish translation - in 1919.
By David Goldstein Inquirer Washington Bureau
Psst. Someone ought to tell the president, Congress and any others upset over the Spanish translation of the national anthem that they are about 90 years too late. The government already gave its blessing when the U.S. Bureau of Education prepared a Spanish version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" in 1919. And that translation has been available on the Library of Congress' Web site for the last two years. Then there is the National Anthem Project, a group that supports music in schools and boasts Laura Bush as honorary chair. Several members of Congress are also supporters. If you need a mariachi or steel drum version of the anthem, the project's got you covered...
Besides Spanish, the library has vintage translations in Polish, French, Italian, Portuguese and Armenian, among others. A little Googling turns up versions in Samoan and Yiddish as well. And with 6,800 known languages in the world, who knows how many more are out there?
"What's sort of surprising for us here who've lived with 'The Star-Spangled Banner' is that everyone has their shorts in a bun about it," said Loras Schissel, a musicologist at the library. "It's old news."Until late last month, that is, when some Latin pop stars released a Spanish version with somewhat different lyrics ("The time has come to break the chains.") called "Nuestro Himno" - "Our Anthem." It landed smack in the middle of a heated debate over immigration. The song's producer and singers hoped to fire up the immigrant community. To critics, they might as well have torched a flag on the Capitol steps. Once Spanish-languageradio aired the song, talk radio, blogs and cable, along with members of Congress, were abuzz with criticism.
In 1919, the government-sponsored Spanish translation evoked a collective yawn, if anyone was even paying attention. "National airs and anthems were popular music at that time," Schissel said. "You bought them on 78 [r.p.m.] records, and people sang them around the piano." But today, "symbols like the flag and the national anthem take on some sacred meaning on both sides in a controversy over national identity," said Ron Eyerman, a Yale University expert on music and social movements. The anthem has weathered controversy before. It was psychedelicized by guitarist Jimi Hendrix in a storm of sonic feedback at Woodstock in 1969, and screechified by comic Roseanne Barr before a San Diego Padres game in1990.
Composer Igor Stravinsky rearranged the composition in 1944 and got the version banned in Boston for his trouble. You can find it in Morse code and binary expression. Somebody somewhere certainly uses it as a cell phone ring tone. But critics are steamed because the song, they insist,should be sung in English. Period. "The national anthem is a symbol of unity of a diverse people united by our common values and Constitution," said Sen. Jim Talent (R., Mo.). "That's why it should be sung in English." Talent and Sen. Pat Roberts (R., Kan.) are among cosponsors of a bill from Sen. Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.) requiring that the anthem never be recited or sung in a foreign tongue. Rep. Jim Ryun (R., Kan.) has a similar bill in the House.
Even pro-immigration groups such as the National Council of La Raza, the largest Hispanic civil-rights group in the country, said translating the anthem was a mistake. "Anthems are sacred," La Raza spokeswoman Lisa Navarrete said, "and we have to be respectful of that." Rep. Harold FordJr. (D., Tenn.) has said that the anthem "should not be lost in translation... . The words, the phrases, the expressions - they all count for something irreplaceable." But Jaime Contreras, chairman of the National Capitol Immigration Coalition, said that the song could not be translated literally, and that the new wording in the latest Spanish version helps people make a "connection about the movement." It was not meant to offend anyone, he said, but rather to serve as a tribute to
America.
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