Free Republic

ARLINGTON, Texas - A two-time “Teacher of the Year” in Arlington is now fighting to keep her job after allegedly telling a Hispanic student to “Go back to Mexico.” Barnett Junior High School math teacher Shirley Bunn has 24 years of teaching experience. But her career could end with what she called a moment of frustration. Bunn admitted she lost her temper on Sept. 30 while distributing Title 1 forms to her eighth grade students. According to public documents, a student who had a history of being disruptive repeatedly asked his teacher for a form printed in Spanish by saying,...

Spanish voters on Sunday are expected to dismiss the Socialist government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and usher in the conservative People's Party (PP) and its leader, Mariano Rajoy. Mr. Zapatero’s Socialist party (PSOE), which has been in power for eight years, has borne the brunt of public blame for Spain’s increasingly perilous economic situation, which has tainted the party’s leadership candidate, Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba. Meanwhile, Mr. Rajoy has been coasting toward an expected landslide victory without saying much about how he plans to reverse Spain’s economic course... The situation is bleak for the eurozone’s fourth-largest...

McALLEN, Texas — An assignment for a high school Spanish class that made students recite the Mexican pledge of allegiance and national anthem upset a parent. “I don’t see a connection between all this Mexican history, and the allegiance and the national anthem … and learning Spanish,” William E. Brinsdon said in an interview with conservative radio host Glenn Beck on Monday. “I just find it appalling, the indoctrination (that) is going on down here,” said the 47-year-old truck driver, who had instructed his 15-year-old daughter to take a video recording of the exercise at McAllen’s Achieve Early College High...

Students in a Texas public high school were made to stand up and recite the Mexican national anthem and Mexican pledge of allegiance as part of a Spanish class assignment, but the school district maintains there was nothing wrong with the lesson. Wearing red, white and green, students had to memorize the Mexican anthem and pledge and stand up and recite them in individually in front of the class. That didn’t go over well with sophomore Brenda Brinsdon. The 15-year-old sat down and refused to participate. She also caught it all on video. I just thought it was out of...

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama says he backs immigration reform, announcing last month an initiative to ease deportation policies, but he has sent home more than 1 million illegal immigrants in 2 1/2 years — on pace to deport more in one term than George W. Bush did in two. The Obama administration had deported about 1.06 million as of Sept. 12, against 1.57 million in Bush's two full presidential terms. This seeming contradiction between rhetoric and reality is a key element of debate over U.S. immigration policy, and stakes are high for 2012's presidential election as Obama faces criticism...

A STRUGGLING gym in northern Spain hopes to entice new customers by offering nudist workout sessions, making it the first in the country to target naturists looking to get into shape. Liberal-minded customers in the northern town of Arrigorriaga are invited to burn calories in the buff at Easy Gym, which provides towels for comfort and to "prevent slippage on the equipment." "We knew we had to innovate because we were losing clients," said Easy Gym owner Merche Laseca. "Times are hard. There is a crisis. I need the money. I am not a nudist myself, but I don't mind...

Israel's ambassador in Spain, Raphael Schutz, who is about to leave his post, denounced the "anti-Semitism and hatred that exist in Spanish society" in a message on the embassy website Saturday. Schutz, who served in the post for a total of four years, referred to his time in Spain as "not very pleasant." (Snip) ''I also take with me the hatred and the anti-Semitism that still exist in Spanish society, and which I experienced personally," he wrote. The outgoing ambassador cited Israel's Operation Cast Lead in Gaza in 2008-9 and the lethal flotilla raid in 2010 as especially difficult periods.

The stumble came in the word zulo, which means "hideout" in English, for San Antonio's sole contestant in the first-ever National Spanish Spelling Bee. Linda Duann Rodriguez, about to start her freshman year at East Central High School, confused the letter "z" with the letter "s" in the competition at the National Hispanic Cultural Center on Saturday morning. After the judges told her "incorrecto," she exited the stage as the third student disqualified and watched as the finalists continued competing. ...After two hours, Evelyn Juárez, a seventh-grader from Carlos F. Vigil Middle School of Santa Cruz, N.M., emerged victorious after...

The vast majority of the 93,420 fans gathered at the Rose Bowl for Saturday’s CONCACAF Gold Cup final had absolutely no problem whatsoever with the postgame ceremony. They loved it, in fact, saving their loudest cheers for beloved tournament MVP Javier “Chícharito” Hernández and the moment when Mexico national team captain Rafael Márquez hoisted the enormous golden trophy that symbolized El Tri’s sixth continental title. U.S. goalkeeper Tim Howard felt very differently. Still stinging from the Americans’ 4-2 defeat, Howard ripped organizers for a ceremony designed to cater to what obviously was a pro-Mexican crowd. He emerged from the U.S....

Video of the testimony of immigrant rights activist Antolin Aguirre, who chose to lecture Texas legislators in Spanish Monday, despite living in the United States for 23 years and taking naturalized citizenship in 2001, was posted on YouTube, and has gone viral after being posted by Drudge. David Paulin brought the shocking display of arrogance to national attention on Thursday on AT. Here is the brief video, demonstrating that Aguirre speaks fine English: CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO This can only be described as ethnic chauvinism. A gringo would never get away with this in Mexico. It is...

Yesterday I parked at a Starbucks and while walking to the place noticed a car (no, it was not a Prius) with the stupidest bumper sticker ever. Actually it had two: The first was that COEXIST one which is also stupid. Because the problems we have today aren't because of Christians fighting with Muslims fighting with Jews fighting with Buddhists fighting with Shintos fighting with Zoroastrians fighting with athiests. The problem is freaking Muslims and left-wing socialist-Marxist secular-"progressive" athiests. But I digress. The other bumper sticker was the real stupid one. It said, "It wouldn't kill you to learn Spanish."...

Dell laptops designed for Spanish-language speakers are selling briskly for BrandsMart USA at the company’s South Florida stores, which makes plenty of sense given the area’s high numbers of Hispanic residents. The Dell Inspiron M5030 sells for $498.88 at BrandsMart USA stores in West Palm Beach, Deerfield Beach, Sunrise and Miami and features a keyboard with keys labeled in Spanish and special characters like the ñ. In addition, it operates on Windows 7 – the Spanish version used by manufacturers in Latin American countries. And of course, the manual is in Spanish.

(CNSNews.com) - April is National Fair Housing Month, and to mark the occasion, the Obama administration is addressing discrimination in housing based on national origin. The emphasis is on immigrants, legal or illegal. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced on Monday that it plans to educate the public -- through community talks and a media campaign -- about discrimination against "persons of foreign descent." “Through this education campaign, HUD will work with communities to prevent housing discrimination and promote immigrant integration into the broader society," said John Trasvina, HUD Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal...

My Joshua's are those I entrust Wholeheartedly with My kingdom for truly they are postured both in heart and in spirit for they know and love Me as Samuel did when he met Me as a child and so they walk in My Shalom and feed on My meat which is The Father's will eternally sustaining My children divinely For they are one with Me . Joshua 24:15 15 But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods...

An unintended but highly illuminating irony of the military intervention in Libya is that it has exposed the duplicity behind European pacifism. Ever since taking office in 2004, Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has worked overtime to craft his own public persona as a “convinced pacifist.” His first official act as pacifist-in-chief was, famously, to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq. That decision was not only wildly popular with Spanish voters, but it also cemented Zapatero’s pacifist credentials on the world stage. Zapatero has also been careful to appoint only pacifists as Spanish ministers of defense. Zapatero’s first defense...

The Spanish-language soap topped Univision and English-language broadcast networks in the adults 18-34 demo in its time period Tuesday. It's not a good sign when a Spanish-language soap tops English-language broadcast networks. That's what happened Tuesday night at 10 p.m. with Telemundo's La Reina del Sur. The program was No. 1 in its time slot in the adults 18-49 and 18-34 demographics, according to Nielsen. In the latter demo, La Reina topped CBS, ABC, NBC and Univision in the period.La Reina drew 2.9 million viewers and roughly 1.93 million were in the ad-favored 18-49 demo. For Monday and Tuesday's telecasts,...

Fellow Freepers, It is a long story. After having been taught to always work very hard and do the best job one can do and always tell the truth, I am definitely leaving public education. The system simply will not tolerate truthful teaching at all anywhere. I am a fluentSpanish-English bilingual capable of speaking excellent Spanish in addition to reading and writing the language. At present I am a Spanish teacher and also selling auto parts as a bilingual. I am looking for contacts to whom I can send credentials and am trying to find work in the following areas:...

Insurance companies don't have to make state-mandated offers of certain kinds of coverage in Spanish, even if that's the language the person speaks, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled Thursday. In a unanimous decision, the justices acknowledged that state law requires insurers to tell motorists they have the right to purchase protection from situations where another driver is either uninsured or lacks sufficient coverage to pay for all the medical bills incurred. And that notice, they said, must be in writing. But Chief Justice Rebecca Berch said if state lawmakers wanted to require insurance companies to provide that notice in Spanish,...

That is definitely the only conclusion you can come up with if you read most of the news-op-eds-opinion columns in Spanish in general and in the Hispanic media in the U.S. in particular. Through out the weekend and today, I read the news about the despicable act committed by Jared Lee Loughner . I evaluated the news both in Spanish and English to see if there was any difference between them. Now, if any of you have been following the opinions of the main-stream media you know that most of them were blaming talk radio, right wing bloggers, Tea-Party followers,...

SNIPPET - Quote: 17 October 2010 TOP "TEN" LIST UPDATED There are only 7 sites listed, of which one, at-Tahadi has been "closed for repairs" for a couple of weeks.

After billions of years the Sun finally has an owner -- a woman from Spain's soggy region of Galicia said Friday she had registered the star at a local notary public as being her property. Angeles Duran, 49, told the online edition of daily El Mundo she took the step in September after reading about an American man who had registered himself as the owner of the moon and most planets in our solar system. There is an international agreement which states that no country may claim ownership of a planet or star, but it says nothing about individuals, she...

Melissa Taggart says she was delighted that her son was learning a foreign language in the eighth grade -- until she learned he was expected to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in Spanish. And that he'd receive a zero if he didn't. Taggart, of Edmond, Okla., said the Pledge should be recited in English -- and English only. “English is our language…and I just feel it’s wrong that he would have to say the Pledge of Allegiance to the United States of America in Spanish. It’s just wrong,” a frustrated Taggart told KFOR.

I have been seeing these signs, or ones very similar, at polling places all around the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex. Can someone explain this to me? Should you really be able to vote if you don't read english?

Sex workers in rural Spain are being forced to wear yellow fluorescent safety vests while renting their bodies in traffic or pay a fine.

MEXICO CITY - New investment from Mexico's Televisa in Spanish-language U.S. broadcaster Univision will tighten the company's grip on a growing U.S. Hispanic market. Televisa, the soap-opera powerhouse that is the top media company in Mexico and one of Latin America's biggest, is investing $1.2 billion for a stake of up to 40 percent in Univision, rekindling a relationship damaged in recent years by royalty payment disputes and management fights. The news propelled Televisa's stock up nearly 10 percent in trade in New York and nearly 9 percent in Mexico City. The agreement makes Televisa the main provider of content...

HHS launches first of its kind consumer focused website in SpanishThe U.S. Department of Health and Human Services today unveiled CuidadodeSalud.gov, the first website in Spanish of its kind to help consumers take control of their health care by connecting them to new information and resources that will help them access quality, affordable health care coverage.

During a meeting which took place about ten days ago between left oriented organizations and representatives of the Spanish government, it was decided that a campaign funded by the Spanish government will begin in the coming days to promote the continuation of the construction freeze in Judea and Samaria. The details on the new campaign were revealed by David Bedein, journalist and Director of Israel Resource News Agency and Center for Near East Policy Research. During an interview with Arutz7 on Tuesday, Bedein said that the meeting was attended by members of the Peres Center for Peace, Peace Now, the...

A California "sanctuary city" has fallen victim to illegal immigration – going bankrupt and firing all of its public employees, Jerome Corsi's Red Alert reports. The city of Maywood, Calif., hit the budget wall after it decided not only to be a sanctuary city, but to be a completely "safe haven" for illegal aliens seeking protection from deportation. "Predictably, mainstream media newspapers, including the Financial Times in London, chose to present Maywood as a victim to the recession, rather than to tell the whole story – that Maywood fell victim to illegal immigration," Corsi wrote. "Crushed by the recession and...

Created under the orders of Bernardino de Sahagun by 20 tlacuilos or painters and 4 Indigenous masters, Florentine Codex is one of the greatest expressions of the Renascence in America. Bilingual and bicultural, this ancient encyclopedia was written in two columns, one in Nahuatl and the other in Spanish as a summary, and is integrated by 4,000 handwritten pages with 2,686 colored images; each book has a prologue where Sahagun places the work in its dimension and time. Restorer Diana Magaloni had access to the original document at the Laurentian Library (Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana) in Florence, Italy, to deepen research:...

As the academic year winds down, Creighton School Principal Rosemary Agneessens faces a wrenching decision: what to do with veteran teachers whom the state education department says don't speak English well enough. The Arizona Department of Education recently began telling school districts that teachers whose spoken English it deems to be heavily accented or ungrammatical must be removed from classes for students still learning English. State education officials say the move is intended to ensure that students with limited English have teachers who speak the language flawlessly. But some school principals and administrators say the department is imposing arbitrary fluency...

WASHINGTON, - A U.S. Census Bureau report indicates 20 percent of residents 5 years and older speak a language other than English at home. The report, which analyzes data collected between 1980 and 2007, found the number of residents speaking a language other than English at home more than doubled during the past three decades, the Chicago Tribune reported Thursday. The census said the number of Spanish speakers in the United States increased by 211 percent, or 23.4 million. The report also said Chicago, once home to the largest population of foreign language speakers, has been overtaken in the category...

The current edition of Gun Facts, the de facto desk reference for firearm policy, has been translated into Latin American Spanish and released on the Gun Facts web site at www.GunFacts.info. “Freedom is not negotiable,” said Guy Smith, author of Gun Facts. “This includes the human right of self-defense. People in Latin America, encouraged by freedoms in the United States, are resisting gun control. It is time for Gun Facts to help refute the anti-freedom factions in the South as it has in the North.” For more than a decade, Gun Facts has debunked common gun control myths. In 118...

Teenage Spanish matador kills 6 bulls By DANIEL WOOLLS Associated Press Writer CACERES, Spain (AP) - A 16-year-old Spanish matador killed six bulls in one afternoon Saturday, pulling off a feat normally attempted only by seasoned veterans and winning trophies for his skill—ears from animals he had just slain. Jairo Miguel Sanchez Alonso, who nearly died from a horrific goring in Mexico in 2007, smiled broadly and waved to a friendly hometown crowd after a pageant that took about two and a half hours. A tall and slender boy who is also amazingly articulate for his age, he showed off...

As the Tennessee General Assembly debates education as a whole, it should be noted that offering in-state tuition is an unfair, unjust and incredulous smack in the face to the thousands of Tennessee college students who are American citizens and who are facing dropping out of college because of the tough economic times and the expense of rising college costs. Furthermore, the Assembly and Governor debate on the viability of transfer credits from a community college to a four-year Tennessee university for these same students so that their degree attainment is quicker and without delay.

Habla Ingles? Bill White, former Mayor of Houston and current front-runner for the Democratic Party heading into the Texas Governor's primary. was in Amarillo today. Education was the main topic. In doing some research I think I actually discovered what is wrong with the Texas education system, and I discovered, too that Bill White is already part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Anchorage, Alaska, Jan 5, 2009 / 05:47 pm (CNA).- Nearly 230 years ago, three Roman Catholic priests sailed from Mexico to Alaska where they would celebrate the first Catholic Mass in the state and bring the Body and Blood of Christ to the Last Frontier. Racing north According to the Catholic Anchor, by the year 1779, the race to explore and claim rights to the far north had already reached Alaska.  During the previous year, the English Captain Cook had sailed into the inlet that now bears his name, and the Russians were already trading furs with Native Alaskans. The...

At a huge rally in the capital, Cardinal Antonio Rouco, the leader of Spain's Roman Catholics, told protesters the birth rate in Europe will be depleted unless Christian values are maintained.Catholics attended a huge open air mass beside Real Madrid's Bernabeu stadium.The mass marked the Feast of the Holy Family. But Catholic leaders from across Europe joined their local counterparts and members of the Spanish centre-Right opposition to castigate the socialist government's policies."Europe will be practically without children," warned Cardinal Rouco, 73, the conservative Archbishop of Madrid. "Who denies to defend a human being so innocent and weak, already conceived...

Hi all. My 11 year old daughter has joined the girls chorus at her school. The chorus just decided its name will be "Las Chicas de Moda." My daughter doesn't like the name. She wanted it to be "Voces Scholasticae" (Latin for School Voices). Question: does this name sound inapproriate? To me it sounds slutty. I've told her teacher we don't like the name but they are pretty much saying it's a done deal (the first concert just happened). Any thoughts/comments/suggestions/linguistic or cultural analysis of "Las Chicas de Moda" would be great!

Results from 34 swine flu victims in New York were released by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in a December 7 bulletin. The swine flu symptoms and effects on the lungs of the victims were similar to the effects of the 1918 Spanish flu, which had an extremely high mortality rate around the world. Other reports of H1N1 infections deep in the lungs have been reported around the world, including Ukraine, China, Brazil, Norway, and the United States, in Iowa and Utah. These infections have been linked to a change in the receptor binding domain of the virus. Swine...

SNIPPET: "Three Spanish aid workers were kidnapped in the North African nation Mauritania on Sunday. Spain’s Interior Minister, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, expressed his concerns that kidnappers could be members of the North African branch of Al Qaeda." SNIPPET: "The names of the workers kidnapped are Alicia Gámez, Roque Pascual and Albert Vilalta. Vilalta’s father, Albert Vilalta is a former regional councilor for the environment."

Now that the holidays are upon us, it’s time to get annoyed with the consumerism, secularism and political correctness that continue to whittle away at the meaning of the holiday season. The secular and consumption-driven nature of the season has become so routine that one has to work hard to remember to take time for the traditions and religious observances that once defined the season. I thought I had seen every example of how religious meaning has been stripped out of Christmas until a friend showed me the label on a festive seasonal bottle of Coca Cola the other day....

"Texas has a very diverse heritage, but all Texans expect our leaders to be accountable and responsible to the people. We are taking the message to the people."

TAOS, N.M. – Larry Whitten marched into this northern New Mexico town in late July on a mission: resurrect a failing hotel. The tough-talking former Marine immediately laid down some new rules. Among them, he forbade the Hispanic workers at the run-down, Southwestern adobe-style hotel from speaking Spanish in his presence

TAOS, N.M. – Larry Whitten marched into this northern New Mexico town in late July on a mission: resurrect a failing hotel. The tough-talking former Marine immediately laid down some new rules. Among them, he forbade the Hispanic workers at the run-down, Southwestern adobe-style hotel from speaking Spanish in his presence (he thought they'd be talking about him), and ordered some to Anglicize their names. No more Martin (Mahr-TEEN). It was plain-old Martin. No more Marcos. Now it would be Mark. Whitten's management style had worked for him as he's turned around other distressed hotels he bought in recent years...

MADRID (AFP) – Underground fires have been raging for weeks in a wetlands area in southern Spain, sparked by the dry summer and the overuse of water for agriculture, an environmentalist said Tuesday. The Tablas de Daimiel National Park, fed by the Guadiana river, has been drying up since the 1980s, and some lagoons have already disappeared. In late August, hot dry weather caused the peat subsurface to catch fire, and plumes of smoke can be seen rising from the ground, said Jose Manuel Hernandez, head of the environmental organisation that looks after the park. "This is a new phenomenon...

Here is video of a man being booed when he asked a question in Spanish at a town hall meeting. (Watch Video)

First the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet cited freedom of the press as its justification for accusing IDF soldiers of harvesting Palestinian organs. Now the Spanish daily El Monde is using the same argument to defend including Holocaust denier David Irving among its list of experts to be interviewed this week to mark 70 years since the start of World War II. An interview with Irving, who served time in an Austrian prison for his Holocaust denial, is scheduled to appear in the paper on Saturday, a day after an interview with Yad Vashem's chairman Avner Shalev.

Well, the day finally came for me to actually be a first-hand witness of why knowing and understanding English is so vitally important when one gets a driver's license. My Florida license expires next month and I will be on tour so renewing it in Florida will be impossible. So I decided to finally get a Tennessee license although I still claim Florida as my legal domicile. I gathered my official documents as required by the state of Tennessee for anyone getting a TN license for the first time. It was a busy day at the DMV (when isn't it...

As the debate and discussions about the health care bill take front and center positioning, it is important to note that at the core of being alive and a human being, it is our innate will to survive. Yes, times are tough these days. But it is the inner desire of oneself to survive, to make it happen, to succeed that is vital to our existence. When one chooses to rely on government, then the pure sense of being alive, of being in control of one's own life begins to erode. Sure, government is needed to provide for roads, infrastructure,...

Lawmakers pass bill to protect language freedom California would protect the freedom of a person to speak any language he or she chooses in a business establishment under a measure approved by the state Legislature today. The bill, authored by Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, is the lawmaker's response to a controversial proposal by the LPGA last fall requiring golfers to speak "effective English." The organization scuttled the proposal after loud objections by Yee and others, and the Democrat says this legislation will ensure it does not happen again. "No one in the state of California should be compelled to...