The new year has begun with an avalanche of Republican retrospectives: What went wrong? What must the GOP do? I keep bumping into advice my father gave me a long time ago: “Learn Spanish. You will need it to survive in the world you will inherit.”
Living in Florida then, the trends were becoming obvious. In 1960, a recently arrived Cuban family moved in a few doors down. Having just escaped Castro’s Cuba with only a few coins sewn in the hems of the mother’s and daughters’ dresses, this family of six spoke little English. We became close friends and eventually, as much out of fascination and affection as pragmatism, I did learn their language — and they mine.
My father’s advice was prescient, if somewhat exaggerated. I haven’t needed Spanish to survive, though being bilingual has helped. A lot. Meanwhile, and not incidentally, our new, 113th U.S. Congress has welcomed 31 Hispanic members. Three are in the Senate, including GOP superstar Marco Rubio of Florida and Republican Ted Cruz of Texas, as well as Democrat Robert Menendez of New Jersey. All are Cuban-American. Of the 28 Latinos in the House of Representatives, all but five are Democrats.
Why so few Republicans? Therein lurks the relevant question for the GOP and perhaps the most important answer to the puzzle: Learn Spanish. I offer my father’s imperative not literally but as metaphor. Though endearing at times, nothing sounds more ridiculous — or inauthentic — than a politician pandering with a faux accent or foreign phrase. (Think Barack Obama droppin’ his g’s in the South, or Hillary Clinton’s rendering of James Cleveland’s freedom hymn at the 42nd anniversary of “Bloody Sunday” in Selma, Ala.)