Letters to the Editor
maureenodonnell
Published Letters: 577 Editor's Choice: 5
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I'll try again! This is the world-wide web, in case you haven't noticed.
[Read the article: Hillary Clinton, the first Latina in chief?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I asked if the recently-elected President of Argentina. Christina Fernandez de Kirchner, is regarded as a "Latina" by citizens of the US but I haven't received an answer. With all the in-fighting between Clinton and Obama supporters, there proably isn'time to re-enact the Battle of the Alamo. My question is about Argentina, however. I've read some of the writings of Benito Lynch, an Argentinian of Irish extraction. The tango is Argentinian and must be one of the most overt expressions of "machismo" but, nonetheless, the people of the Argentine elected a female President. There are wheels-within-wheels, complexities in an enigma, but what Richard Rodriguez has written does not offer clarification. I'd like some unbiased answer to my question about Christina Fernandez de Kirchner. Is she a "Latina", according to the US criterion or is "Latina" just another one of your shibboleths?
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Anonymous at 9:24 a.m. Is this an answer?
[Read the article: Hillary Clinton, the first Latina in chief?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As one of the "uninformed"< I'm not one iota wiswe by what you've written although I think that, in a roundabout way, you'e suggesting that "Latinos" are Mexican. Bianca Jagger is from Nicaragua and became well-known when she was married to Mick of The Rolling Stones? Is she Latina? I could be wrong but I'm getting the feeling that "Latino" is used in a derogatory way of Spanish-speaking people of humble background and I don't like it.
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Anonymous ' 9:54 I'm not trying to have a fight with you either
[Read the article: Hillary Clinton, the first Latina in chief?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's early on Saturday evening on this part of the world and I thought I'd like to read about the "Latino" vote. I lived in Spain for a short while. I still cannot understand why Mexicans, Panamanians, Salvadorians and os on are not given the courtesy of a nationality but have to be all lumped together. I've eaten Mexican food but it was never called Latino food. I hope I'm wrong but there seems to be a "snob" element in all of this. The female President of Argentina is not a "Latina", I gather, although she speaks Spanish and lives in Buenos Aires. Many people in Europe believe that Americans haven't a clue about anything ouside the US and that they are so inward-lloking that it's hardly a surprise that your foreign policy is so up-the-spout. Yesterday I was reading that it was the fifth anniversary of Colin Powell@ appearance before the United Nations when he stated categorically that Iraq had WMD, even adding to the "security information" he said he had. Within a day or two, "The Guardian" newspaper in the UK completely ridiculed the American claim. Now when I ask a perfectly reasoble question about "Latinos" only you make an effort to answer and I thank you for that. Nonetheless, I'd like a reasonable, comprehensible explanation from someone with the expertise of the author, Mr. Rodriguez. Glibness in an article about people called "Latinos" doesn't impress me and I still haven't figured out who coined such an amorphous term for people South of the Border.
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I don't care about the typos
[Read the article: Hillary Clinton, the first Latina in chief?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]but I sould have wrtten "people FROM South of the Border".
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Thank you also Anonymous @ 10:l7 a.m.
[Read the article: Hillary Clinton, the first Latina in chief?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's my opinion now that it was completely misguided to star hyphenating Americans - African American, Irish-American and so on. To us, they are all Americans and that's that. A so-called Irish-American in Boston, for instance, is more than likely to have nothing whatsoever in common with the people living here. I know from relations that the early contingents of Irish-born Americans who returned to the land of their birth were very often laughed at because of their boastfulness, those horrible check trousers they liked to wear and so on. This actually happened: Some relative of my grandfather arrived at his house with her husband who was of Danish descent and had a Scandinavian name. My grand-da had fortified himself for the ordeal by imbibing some hard liquor. All was smiling and oh-so-proper until my grandfather demanded of the Danish-American husband, in a somewhat belligerent way "Did you know that the Danes killed our King Brian Boru?" This had happened in the 9th (Ninth!) century during the frequent Viking raids on Ireland. Some of the cousins with "petit bourgeois" aspirations were displeases with my grandfather but, when I was told about it in a shocked tone of "that terrible man", I thought he was great, although I knew full well that a sense of grievance was not a good substitute for historical fact.
Yes, to the person who raised the question. There seems to be huge antipathy to Bush in Europe - along with Rumsfeld and Cheney. I don't think this encompasses Americans in general but people are bemused as to why you elected a dunderhead like Bush a second time. From what I've learned about your television media, it seems to be utterly delinquent. Now about any hostility to the ordinary American, I've no evidence at all that it exists, especially among the (ugh!) Baywatch generation but I suppose the French were'nt thrilled to be called "cheese-eating surrender-monkeys". With that I'm off for a few minutes to eat a piece of cheese.
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sorry, A rlo Figg, Hillary Clinton is not Anglo-Saxon
[Read the article: Hillary Clinton, the first Latina in chief?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Here we go again, with people going on and on about the heredity of others. Correct me if I'm wrong but I've understood that she is of Welsh descent. Why should it matter anyway? The Welsh have their own language, are very mucical people and have been known to play the harp beautifully. They are Celts and you must never have met a Welshman or woman or you'd hear all about it if you called either an Anglo-Saxon. Richard Burton married to Elizabeth Taylor, always promoted his Welshness and you must just have missed out on Catherine Zeta-Jones. Bill Clinton's mother was Cassidy. Doesn't sound very Anglo-Saxon to me. Let's just all hate everybody if they don't look like us, are more successful or anything at all will do. Sure, maybe Hillary Clinton's grandma was Lizzie Borden, the axe-murdere from Massachusetts? Oh no, Lizzie never had children. Doesn't really matter, does it?