http://vivirlatino.com

The State of the Union: Same Story for Latinos except for Spanish Commentary
08:54 H | Topics: Bilingualism - Immigration - Politics

It took President Bush all of about 8 minutes to mention 9-11, weapons of mass destruction, and Bin Laden, making the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq central themes in last night's State of the Union Address. The speech, which lasted a little under an hour, had a minute or two about what's on the mind of most Latinos, immigration. Bush said he understood that immigrants play an important role in the economy of the United States but stood firm in promoting his visiting worker program and offering no amnesty to undocumented immigrants.

Perhaps the biggest difference in this year's State of the Union Address was that there were two official Democratic reactions. One came in English from Tom Kaine, the Governor of Virginia and one in Spanish from Antonio Villaraigosa, the mayor of Los Angeles.

Maybe I expected Antonio Villaraigosa to have more cojones in calling out the contradictions found in Bush's speech. For example how other countries want our democratic freedom while we're spying on our own citizens. Instead what we got was a tempered retelling of the Democratic Party line with a Spanish language accent. Villaraigosa referred to his own roots, the child of immigrants, of a single mother who rode the bus everyday to work. He wanted to be our every Latino yet he towed the line in drawing distinctions between the documented and undocumented, stressing the importance of being here legally.

As long as Latinos, especially those in public office, parrot what the official party line, further dividing Latinos into these neat categories of legal and illegal instead of offering real alternatives to nationalism in the name of homeland security , then the multi-faceted Latino community will never build a united front.