This morning I heard an interview of a local poet.
He is a first generation Mexican American.
He is fluently bi-lingual and writes his poems in both English and Spanish.
After reading one of his Spanish poems a brief discussion ensued between the poet and the interviewer - the interviewer being a first generation Taiwanese American.
Somehow the discussion got into how did the poet choose which language for which poem, or, maybe even, for which part of a single poem - mixed is sometimes good, I guess.
That seemed a pretty valid and pretty interesting subject.
And it was.
Somehow all that led the interviewer to allude to the always lurking malevolence of "being colonized".
She asked the poet about how the fact that "being colonized by the English language" influenced his choice of language.
I did have to suppress a laugh.
Spanish, the great colonizer being "colonized" by the Johnny-Come-Lately to the colonizing game?
"Being Colonized" is a great shorthand way to describe a lot of imbedded evil in our system.
So I suggest that those who use it don't use it in such a manner as to subject it to ridicule.
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