Colext: Vanity Fair

[Fernando Guzman]

Colext/Macondo
Cantina virtual de los COLombianos en el EXTerior
--------------------------------------------------

Acabo de recibir el siguiente mensaje de alguien que lee Vanity Fair.
Yo ni la leo, ni la miro ni la huelo :-)  De todas maneras, la
protesta está interesante.

-- 
Fernando Guzman
[EMAIL PROTECTED]



# To whom it may concern;
# 
# This petition is to request a formal apology from
# Vanity Fair and Dame Edna
# for
# the offensive article regarding Latinos and the
# Spanish language which
# appears
# in the February 2003 issue of Vanity Fair.  In the
# meantime, please boycott
# Vanity Fair magazine, and urge others to do the same.
# If you are offended
# by the
# word-for-word transcription below, please copy (rather
# than forward) this
# email
# in a new message, sign it at the end of the list, and
# send it to all of the
# people whom you know. If you receive this list with
# 100 names signed,
# please
# send it to the Editor at: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
# 
# And copy me: [EMAIL PROTECTED]>
# Thank you!
# Wendy Maldonado
# 
# ___________________________
# 
# Excerpt, Vanity Fair (February 2003), p. 116, Ask Dame
# Edna:
# 
# Dear Dame Edna,
# 
# I would very much like to learn a foreign language,
# preferably French or
# Italian, but every time I mention this, people tell me
# to learn Spanish
# instead.
# They say, "Everyone is going to be speaking Spanish in
# 10 years.  George W.
# Bush
# speaks Spanish." Could this be true? Are we all going
# to have to speak
# Spanish?
# 
# Torn Romantic,
# Palm Beach
# 
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------
# 
# Dear Torn:
# 
# Forget Spanish. There's nothing in that language worth
# reading except Don
# Quixote, and a quick listen to the CD of Man of La
# Mancha will take care of
# that. There was a poet named Garcia Lorca, but I'd
# leave him on the
# intellectual
# back burner if I were you. As for everyone's speaking
# it, what twaddle!
# Who
# speaks it that you are really desperate to talk to?
# The  help? Your leaf
# blower?
# Study French or German, where there are at least a few
# books worth reading,
# or,
# if you're American, try English.
# 
# Dame Edna
# 
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------
# 
# Dear Editor,
# 
# I was infuriated at Dame Edna's response to Torn
# Romantic, Palm Beach
# (Vanity Fair, February 2003). Dame Edna could have
# chosen any number of
# amusing responses; however, she responded using cheap,
# two-dimensional
# stereotypes of Latinos and Latin Americans, revealing
# not only her racism
# but
# also her profound ignorance of who we are. We are not
# just 'the help' and
# the
# 'leaf blowers'. We are architects and activists,
# journalists and doctors,
# governors and athletes, scientists and business
# people. We are Nobel Prize
# Winners and Rhodes Scholars. We speak Spanish, but we
# also speak fluent
# English,
# and many of us speak other languages as well. As of
# last week, we are
# officially
# the largest minority population in the United States
# at 37 million and
# 13%of the
# population. Without us, the economy of this nation and
# the Americas, and
# consequently the world, would come to a complete
# standstill. If Dame Edna
# were
# even remotely cultured or educated, she would have
# read and lost herself in
# the
# exquisite writings of Nobel prize winners Octavio Paz,
# Gabriel
# Garcia-Marquez,
# and Pablo Neruda. She would know that Sor Juana Inez
# de la Cruz was one of
# the
# first feminists and
# poets in the Americas. She would admire Isabel Allende
# and Sandra Cisneros
# for
# their passionate prose and vibrant spirits. And of
# course, if it had not
# been
# for us, the world would not know chocolate! And
# everyone knows life would
# not be
# worth living without chocolate. Finally, I would like
# to point out that
# Dame
# Edna would have NEVER written such blatantly offensive
# material about
# African-Americans or Jews, for obvious reasons. It
# seems that Dame Edna AND
# the
# Editors of Vanity  Fair believe that Latinos and Latin
# Americans cannot
# read,
# and even if we  could, we would never be Vanity Fair
# readers. For the life
# of
# me,  I still cannot figure out why you chose to
# feature Salma Hayek on the
# cover
# and in an article celebrating her success immediately
# following such an
# offensive piece. I demand an apology in print
# in the next issue of Vanity Fair from the Editors and
# from Dame Edna. In
# the
# meantime, I will be mobilizing everyone I know to
# boycott and protest
# Vanity
# Fair. By the way, I am a 31-year old Mexican-American
# woman, with three Ivy
# League  degrees, working in New York City at a major
# firm.  I sure as hell
# am
# NOT the leaf blower or the help, and I think all of
# you need to go to
# college.
# 
# Wendy Maldonado

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