(Ahora o nunca: Dueños de nuestra casa / Now or Never: Masters of Our Home)

Today I made a presentation in my French group about Québec. I got excited. I talked fast about La Loi 101, La charte de la langue francaise. and the Quiet Revolution.  On my bike ride home, I wondered: when will we have a Loi 101 for Texas? For the Southwest? For Aztlán?  A law that guarantees the linguistic rights of Spanish speakers. Chapter II of the Loi 101 defines five rights for French speakers in Québec. I've replaced the word French with Spanish. Imagine what the Southwest would be like if we had these rights:

1. The right of every person to have all branches of government, professional associations, employee associations and companies communicate with her in Spanish;
2. The right of everyone to speak Spanish in deliberative assemblies;
3. The right of workers to exercise their activities in Spanish;
4. The right of consumers to be informed and served in Spanish;
5. The right of persons eligible for instruction to receive their instruction in Spanish.

It's hard to imagine. But I think, in time, it will be a reality. Or at least I hope so. Or I will it to be so.

Can you imagine a politician in Texas making an ad like this in both languages? Maybe there are some?

Anglophones in Quebec used to tell French speakers to "Speak White" when they were trying to get them to stop speaking French. Michèle Lalonde read this poem in response in 1970. Here is some analysis of her poem. I've posted it before on this blog.

Oh, we can dream of an officially bilingual Southwest.

On my bike, a phrase kept echoing in my head: We CAN (un)write the past.

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