Whose National Anthem Is It?

Michelle Malkin reports that our National Anthem was re-recorded in Spanish by several Latino artists and renamed Nuestro Himno as a “show of support for migrants in the United States.” Check this out:

NEW YORK – Mexican pop diva Gloria Trevi, Puerto Rican reggaeton Ivy Queen and Tito El Bambino and other Latino artists are recording a Spanish-language version of the U.S. national anthem in a show of support for migrants in the United States.

The Latino-oriented record label Urban Box Office (UBO) said Saturday it plans to release the new version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” to coincide with the U.S. Senate’s debate on immigration legislation next week.

Congressional debate over immigration bills proposing everything from toughened border security to the legalization of undocumented migrants in America have triggered huge demonstrations across the United States in recent weeks.

“We chose to re-record ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ to show our solidarity with the undocumented immigrants and their quest for basic civil rights,” UBO President Adam Kidron said in a news release.

The recording, dubbed “Nuestro Himno” or “Our Anthem,” is set to “rhythmic Latin musical arrangement” but respects the song’s traditional structure, UBO said. The song will be primarily in Spanish with a few words sung in English.

The song is on the album “Somos Americanos,” which will be sold for $10, with a portion going to Washington-based National Capital Immigration Coalition, UBO said.

As Michelle asked, who’s assimilating whom?

David Hinkley of The New York Daily News is a little concerned:

The intent with “Nuestro Himno,” or “Our Anthem,” is quite specific.

“We decided to show our solidarity with the undocumented migrants,” says President Adam Kidron of UBO Records, which is releasing the track to coincide with a U.S. Senate debate on an immigration bill whose carrots and sticks could change the lives of maybe 12 million immigrants, documented and otherwise.

The song tries to say in music what millions of immigrants have argued in recent street demonstrations: America’s tradition is inclusion.

Let’s just not be surprised if it stirs other folks to say that America also has a tradition of English, and that if you really want to be part of things here, you don’t make it by singing her song in some other language.

Kidron dismisses the cultural-subversion theory. Today’s immigrants want to become part of America just like earlier generations of Germans, Italians, Irish and Russians, he says.

In fact, he argues, they have: “Today we are Americans and ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ represents everything to us.”

It sure would lower our national blood pressure if everyone accepted that.

But the national anthem, ridiculed though it may be as a piece of music, has deceptive emotional power.

That’s why artists from Jimi Hendrix to Marvin Gaye as well as jokers like Roseanne Barr have used it to make some larger point – and that’s why they were all blasted by choruses of critics who told them to make their point somewhere else with some other song.

I understand an immigrant’s desire to come to the US to find a better life for himself and for his family. However, to do so without any regard for our immigration laws and to later demand full rights and American citizenship is unacceptable. Now we have our American Anthem, a moving and loved tribute to America’s fight for independence, has been taken over and used as an illegal immigrant call to action.

Stuck on Stupid asks if a latino Pledge of Allegiance is next.

Unabashedly Unhyphenated is offended.

"Maybe if we ignore them, they'll just go away"
Missed milestones

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