Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Si se puede

I was at a friend´s house with cable last night and I watched the Clinton speech, until CNN dropped her unceremoniously to broadcast Obama. I ended up translating most of both of the speeches to spanish for him, and found myself trying to translating the political speak as well. 47 million uninsured, path to citizenship while strengthening borders, jobs going overseas, leaving no child behind all carry their own nuance that is lost on people who have been watching the political dialogue from a distance. During my garbled sound bites in castellano, I tried to explain No Child Left Behind, the sub-prime housing crisis, and the use of gay marriage in the last election, and what I believed were references to MLK. There was a poster that said "Si se puede" which impressed my friend no end. Yep, there´s a bunch of Latinos in Texas.

I was happy, man. I was happy with the speech, I was happy to wake up and read it has officially been called a landslide. I know its too early to really get excited. I know that the general election is going to be a whole different ballgame. But lord, I did feel good last night.

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