J.D. Hayworth, a former Republican congressman from Arizona who now hosts a program on the conservative Newsmax network, said on his program yesterday that it is “cultural surrender” for Americans to learn Spanish.
Hayworth, discussing the Democratic National Convention with anti-immigrant leader Dan Stein of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, played a clip of Dreamer activist Astrid Silva speaking at the convention, where she warned that Donald Trump’s immigration plan amounts to “ripping families apart.”
“Hey, Dan, there’s just one thing about family reunification,” Hayworth said. “Families can stay together when they go back to their country of origin, can’t they?
“J.D., think about how offensive this is to the American people,” Stein responded. “The people who have crashed our borders come illegally, now have the temerity to interfere with our political system. Between the illegal aliens going out and get out the vote campaign for president Obama and the Mexican government using its consulates in this country to actually organize people to work on candidates, you have a gross interference in our political process.”
“We don’t owe this young lady anything as a nation,” Stein continued. “What we owe her is a certain amount of respect, which implies, one, addressing her in the English language, as she has to us. When politicians talk in Spanish to any constituency, they’re demeaning them by saying, ‘Oh, you can’t learn English.’”
“You know, it’s worse than that, Dan,” Hayworth said. “When I had some friends taking Spanish — and of course there’s a Spanish population in Arizona — I’d say to them, ‘Oh, you boys gonna go take your class in surrender?’ Because it’s a cultural surrender, part of the mindset.”
