[RAICES] crap in vanity fair

[daniel older]

The following appeared in Vanity Fair magazine
(February 2003), p. 116,
in the column "Ask Dame Edna":
Dear Dame Edna,
I would very much like to learn a foreign language,
preferably French or
Italian, but every time I mention this, people tell me
to learn Spanish
instead. They say, "Everyone is going to be speaking
Spanish in 10
years. George W. Bush speaks Spanish." Could this be
true? Are we all
going to have to speak Spanish? Torn Romantic, Palm
Beach
Dear Torn:
Forget Spanish. There's nothing in that language worth
reading except
Don Quixote, and a quick listen to the CD of Man of La
Mancha will take
care of that. There was a poet named Garcia Lorca, but
I'd leave him on
the intellectual back burner if I were you. As for
everyone's speaking
it, what twaddle! Who speaks it that you are really
desperate to talk
to? The help? Your leaf blower? Study French or
German, where there are
at least a few books worth reading, or, if you're
American, try English.
Dame Edna
If this example of anti-Latino racism offends you,
this petition
encourages you to participate in a mass effort to
request a formal
apology from Vanity Fair and "Dame Edna," to support a
boycott of Vanity
Fair magazine, and to urge others to do the same.
If you would like to sign the petition, please copy
(rather than
forward) this email in a new message, sign it and
number your name, and
circulate it widely.

If you receive this list with 100 names signed, please
send it to the
Editor at vfmail at vf.com
Thank you!
Dear Editor,
We, the undersigned, are infuriated at Dame Edna's
response to Torn
Romantic, Palm Beach (Vanity Fair, February 2003).
Dame Edna could have
chosen any number of amusing responses; however, she
responded using
cheap, two-dimensional stereotypes of Latinos and
Latin Americans,
revealing not only her racism but also her profound
ignorance of who we
are. As of last week, we are officially the largest
minority population
in the United States at 37 million and 13% of the
population. Without
us, the economy of the United States would come to a
complete
standstill. Moreover, if Dame Edna were even remotely
cultured or
educated, she would have read and lost herself in the
exquisite writings
of countless Latin American authors, including Nobel
prize winners
Octavio Paz, Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, and Pablo Neruda.
Dame Edna would
have NEVER written such blatantly offensive material
about African
Americans or Jews, for obvious reasons. It seems that
Dame Edna AND the
Editors of Vanity Fair believe that Latinos and Latin
Americans cannot
read, and even if we could, we would never be Vanity
Fair readers. We
demand an apology in print in the next issue of Vanity
Fair from the
Editors and from Dame Edna. In the meantime, we will
be mobilizing a
boycott in protest of Vanity Fair.
Signed,
1. Dr. Nicholas De Genova, Professor, Latino Studies,
Columbia
University, New York City.
2.  Nadia Guessous, Graduate Student, Anthropology and
Gender Studies, 
Columbia University, New York City, NY.  USA.
3. Lucia Gimeno, Organizer, Brooklyn, NY.  USA 
4. Daniel José Older, student, Amherst MA USA
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