(Note: The views below are the author’s alone.)
DENVER — When José Serrano’s thick Spanish accent of the South Bronx filled Denver’s Pepsi Center on Monday afternoon, his speech was the prelude for a polyglot conversation. Serrano spoke of patriotism, of the need for a”new direction of our great nation.” The original soundtrack sounded like this:”Necesitamos una nueva dirección para nuestra gran nación.” Taking ownership and responsibility for the American dream in a foreign language during a secular mass for the democratic nominee is a remarkable episode. It would be outside of the realm of imagination in any European country–imagine Chancellor Angela Merkel addressing German citizens in Turkish or President Nicolas Sarkozy referring to Frenchmen in Arabic. But in a U.S. presidential election, nothing is impossible and multilingual politics is the call of the day. Young delegates from New York proudly display”Hispanic Voter” stickers and give one press interview after the next. This is not only about diversity and the minority vote, the underlying argument goes far beyond old machine politics and voting blocs. It is about overcoming the fragmentation of political language.
CNN understood the mood of the time and fittingly features the seal of E pluribus unum next to its trademark nameplate. FOX News presented itself more traditionally as”America’s Election HQ.” Coming together is more than a slogan this time. The power of words is supposed to unite Americans, and it also put Barack Obama on track — from being a keynote speaker at the last convention to the candidate of the current assembly.
Jesse Jackson, Jr., Congressman from Obama’s home state of Illinois, laid the groundwork to connect the multilingual mood of the new minority with the most American accent of the oldest minority. It was right to gather this meeting in Denver, he said, because never before had Democrats been so close to the mountaintop that Martin Luther King, Jr., had made a cornerstone of one of his most important speeches. When he said in Memphis in 1968 that”we’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop,” he had placed himself at the core of American history. The same is true for Obama, argued Jackson Jr. America needed to be with him for its own sake. Unity and the establishment of a political language that is not fragmented are the tasks of the day, because”this is a country in which we rise and fall together.”
Against this colorful backdrop the theme of (multilingual) unity acquires a new meaning and a new political rhythm. Its exact expression was Carlos Santana’s”Oye Como Va” that rocked the arena at a quarter past seven in the evening. Knowingly or not, the ill Ted Kennedy picked up that thread later that night during an emotional appearance. He could not stand the few minutes it took to deliver his speech, a chair was put behind the lectern. His vigorous endorsement was a concession speech of kinds, the older generation passing its legacy on to a new country. With Ted Kennedy, the old America approves the new, New England looks toward Hawaii for political inspiration. The country moves West and the convention meets in the middle: Denver.”Hope rises again and the dream lives on,” Kennedy proclaimed. He spoke not about his own, but rather his brother’s legacy. If in November Americans elect the first black and not the 44th white president, they will be writing history by breaking with it.
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