Pamela Druckerman writes in the NYT:
The area’s remaining “Anglos” — now just 15 percent of the population — want their kids to learn Spanish. (Confusingly, Miami’s Latinos call these Anglos “Americans.”)
MIAMI even has a homegrown dialect. Young Latinos — regardless of whether they even know Spanish — speak English with a Spanish twang. To non-Miamians, they sound like extremely fluent immigrants. Phillip M. Carter, a linguist at Florida International University, says that when young born-and-bred Miamians visit the rest of America, or even Boca Raton, people often ask them what country they’re from.
I don’t see what is so confusing about Latinos calling Anglos “Americans.” The United States of America has historically been a dominantly white country, with whites making up about 90% of the population. In 1980, whites were still 80% of the population. Whites founded the United States. They wrote its Declaration of Independence and its constitution. Its important leaders have been white. Its leading citizens have been white.
The core of America is white. The other tribes are guests who don’t have the same loyalty, in general, to the United States and don’t make the same sacrifices for it. When Osama Bin Laden was killed, it was whites who poured on to the streets to celebrate. The people who cry over the playing of the national anthem are white. The people who revere the Constitution are white. The people who write books praising the noble history of America are white. The racial group least likely to collect welfare are white (or oriental). The group least likely to cheat on disability and taxes, I suspect, are white. The group that pays the most taxes are white. The racial group most unhappy about the direction of the country is whites (blacks are the happiest, followed by latinos).
