Los Angeles, Mexico

This bit of vindictive schadenfreude by the L.A. Times, kicking the city of San Diego while it's admittedly down, cannot go unpunished. Bringing up J. David Dominelli? (If you don't know who that is, don't worry -- someday your host will write about how SD never really gets scandals appropriate to the 7th-largest city in the U.S.). That really is scraping the barrel, Times. Therefore, today's composition will focus on an irritating little incident going on in Los Angeles at the moment, as part of our ongoing coverage of language politics in California.

The setting? A Spanish-language TV station has recently put up billboards which very unsubtly argue that Los Angeles is part of Mexico, not California. The Times describes it thusly:

New billboards advertising a Spanish-language newscast on KRCA-TV Channel 62 were intended as an attention-grabber for its core audience, but instead have struck a nerve with activists seeking to curb illegal immigration.

The billboards show two cable newscasters sitting in front of the downtown skyline, with "Los Angeles, CA" printed above. The "CA" is crossed out, and "Mexico" is stamped alongside in bright red letters. Underneath are the Spanish words, "Tu ciudad. Tu equipo." — Your city. Your team.

([You can see a picture here. -- ed.])

SC only learned of this controversy when Lenard Liberman, the station executive quoted in the story, appeared on Larry Elder's radio show yesterday afternoon to defend the billboard. He largely repeated the same comments he had made previously to the Times:

"We tell the story behind L.A.., and we tell the story behind Mexico," he said. "If they find that offensive, I'm sorry. But you just have to drive around L.A. to know that this is a Hispanic city."

It's hard to parse this as meaning something other than that the ad is intended to convey a sense of disregard for living in California. Other executives for the broadcaster try to put a more positive spin on it:

"All we are saying is, 'It's your city, your town, your team,' " said Andrew Mars, vice president for sales for Liberman Broadcasting. "We are a team that's educating and informing the Spanish-language marketplace."

Of course, it's impossible to get inside people's heads, and speculating about motives would be pointless. However, even taking both executives at their word, the lack of sensitivity to the perceptions of the English-speaking community is surprising. It's at least arguable that perceptions of previously having toyed with the idea of a "reconquista" cost Cruz Bustamante a chance to become governor of California in 2003, and Antonio Villaraigosa a chance to become mayor of Los Angeles in 2001. In suggesting that Spanish-speakers view themselves as resident aliens, regardless of their actual citizenship status, KRCA's executives have chosen to lend credibility to these views, a grave disservice to precisely the audience they are trying to reach.

Comments

[Jim]

It's also pretty insensitive to the feelings of Mexicans to call them Hispanics. These days the majority of Mexicnas migrating and working along the I-5 corridor are indigenous people. The Yakima schools have been getting Mexican kids who don't speak Spanish - their dads do, but they don't. Supposedly there is a whole network of Zapotec communities in LA and up and down the coast.