How A VDARE.COM Article Landed Me A Cameo Role In A PBS Documentary

Memo From Mexico, By Allan Wall

Thanks to a VDARE.COM article I wrote several years ago, I was invited to appear in a documentary on the state of the English language in America.

In February 2002, in Spanish and the New Conquistadors, I pointed out that the growth of Spanish in the United States is frankly perceived by prominent Mexicans as a conquest.

As a result of this article, I was asked if I’d be willing to be interviewed for the projected Robert MacNeil documentary Do You Speak American? I agreed.

So, in March of 2003 I traveled by bus from my home somewhere in Mexico to Laredo, Texas, where I linked up with the production team. I was interviewed for the documentary and filmed crossing the bridge on foot. They put me up for the night in a nice riverside hotel and treated me to a few meals. It was the first time I’d ever been involved in anything like that, giving me a small glimpse of how a documentary is produced.

“Allan Wall …said that living in Mexico had given him a different perspective on the inroads of Spanish in America. He recalled a Congress of the Spanish Language in Madrid in 2001. One of the speakers was Vicente Fox, the president of Mexico, who commented that Mexican immigrants who continue to speak Spanish in the United States are doing their patriotic duty to Mexico. [Text of speech, in Spanish.] Another speaker was Carlos Fuentes, perhaps the leading literary figure in Mexico. "He said that there is a silent reconquista of the United States. He didn’t even limit it to the Southwest, as many do; he just said ‘of the United States’."