Who in their right mind voluntarily spends their weekend at a pro-Castro conference alongside a bunch of leftists who quote Che Guevara?
As tends to happen anytime a “Latino issue” breaks the internet, my phone’s been lighting up like a Sábado Gigante prize wheel with translation requests since last night. This time, the drama comes courtesy of Illinois Congresswoman Delia Ramirez, who took the stage at a far-left conference in Mexico City last weekend and proudly declared: “Yo soy guatemalteca con mucho orgullo primero que soy americana.”
I get the confusion from my no hablo pals. Her Spanish was mangled. The proper phrasing for such verbal excrement would’ve been “antes de ser americana” — but the meaning was crystal clear: I’m proudly Guatemalan before being American.
The problem is, Ramirez isn’t actually Guatemalan. She was born and raised in Chicago and swore an oath to this country. Perhaps she’s just confused — she has probably been told she’s from “Middle America” and assumed that’s the same as Central America.
I mean, sure — her parents are Guatemalan. But she wears their nationality the way Hank Azaria did in The Birdcage: rocking Daisy Dukes in drag while dancing with a broomstick to Gloria Estefan’s “Conga.” Agador’s Guatemalan-ness was pure camp — loud, ridiculous, and deeply confusing to me as a child. But at least Azaria knew it was pretend.
Ramirez, on the other hand, is dead serious — and if you question her, it must be because you secretly hate Mexicans, once gave the Selena series a thumbs down on Netflix, or eat tamales with the husk on. Or something.
Some of her defenders now claim she meant the reverse: that she’s American first but proud of her roots. The problem is, that’s not what she said. A sentence like that would’ve been structured a little differently. Still, if it is what she meant, she had a perfectly plausible excuse “Spanish is my second language. I speak Latinx.”
Instead, she claimed no one would’ve cared if she’d said she was proud to be European, which is obviously absurd. Had John Boehner stood before the EU in Brussels and said, “I’m German-Irish before American,” he would’ve gotten the Tom Hagen treatment.
In response, a few people on the right are now calling for Ramirez to be denaturalized, despite her being born here. Harsh, too harsh. But they’re onto something: She shouldn’t be stripped of her American citizenship. But Delia Catalina Ramirez has forfeited her Guatemalan-ness. Not because her Spanish is lousy. She lost it because Guatemalans are cool people — having grown up in Miami, I happen to know many. And this congresswoman might be a lot of things, but cool is most certainly not one of them.
Who in their right mind voluntarily spends their weekend at a pro-Castro conference alongside a bunch of leftist dorks who quote Che Guevara the way normal people quote Seinfeld? It’s the antithesis of cool.
Still, we’re sensible folk. I see no reason why she shouldn’t be allowed to earn back her Guatemalan-ness in one of two ways: two months of solitary confinement in a duplex run by three abuelitas armed with wooden spoons and even stronger opinions. Or, she can serve in Congress there.
So — what do you say, congresswoman?
Would you do that . . . for your country?