Multi-Culturalism of the Seventies

I was just making pancakes for a late breakfast, and a song started running through my head: "Haciendo tortillas para mi abuelo. Tortillas, tortillas, para mi abuelo." It was a song I'd learned in elementary school, in an after-school Spanish class. The reason it popped into my head today is that we'd been told that the lyrics translated as "Making pancakes for my grandpa. Pancakes, pancakes, for my grandpa."

OK, my grandfathers have been dead for over 20 and 40 years, respectively, but I was making pancakes, so it made perfect sense to think of that song. Except... "pancakes"? The song is about tortillas, and I was not making tortillas, not even for myself. I studied Spanish for several years in high school and college, and here I was pretending that "tortilla" meant "pancake". The lessons we learn as children really do stick with us, don't they?

Why on earth had my Spanish teacher told me that? Because she assumed (correctly, at least in my case) that we didn't know what a tortilla really was, and substituted the closest equivalent in our cultural vocabulary. But that was in the 1970's. What kid in America today hasn't seen a tortilla? I like to think of myself as a child of an enlightened modern era, and I pity the cultural provincialism of people who grew up in the 1950's or 1930's. But I grew up not even knowing what a tortilla was.

Another bit of archaic multiculturalism from my childhood was the annual Christmas program the school put on (and yes, that's what we called it). In retrospect, I remember a substantial number of secular songs about winter being performed, but there were also songs specifically about the baby Jesus. But not my class. There were (I think) three Jewish kids in my class, and I'm guessing that this was the highest concentration of Hebrews in the school, because my class got picked to do the Hanukkah songs.

One year we learned "Oh dreidel, dreidel, dreidel, I made you out of clay. And when you're dry and ready, with dreidel I will play." (A dreidel is a four-sided top, used in a game kind of like throwing dice.) Another year we did, "Hanukkah, oh Hanukkah, come light the menorah. Let's have a party, we'll all dance the hora. Gather round the table, we'll give you a treat. Find someone to play with, and something to eat. And while we are playing, the candles are burning low. One for each night, they shed a sweet light, to remind us of days long ago." And we really did dance the hora. I learned a few years later that this was a culturally-simplified version; the one line is supposed to use Hebrew words for the dreidel to play with and a sweet pastry to eat, and I doubt kids in West Michigan today would understand those any more than I would have. Jewish culture hasn't risen in prominence like Latino culture has.

(We also improvised our own evil version of the lyrics, not out of anti-Semitism, but just because that's what kids do for fun: "Hanukkah, oh Hanukkah, come light the menorah. Let's have a party, we'll all dance quite horrid. Gather round the table, we'll give you a treat. Find something to play with, and someone to eat. And while we are playing, the candles are burning the house. One for each night, they give us great fright, to remind us of days long ago.")

It's been quite a while since I've seen an elementary school program, so I have no idea what they're like today. Probably some are devoid of religious references altogether, some are loaded with Christmas hymns in defiant defence of tradition, and some are trying to cover the religious bases like mine did... and now incorporating Islam into the pantheon. (Know any fun 'Eid-ul-Fitr songs? I hear Hallmark is launching a line of 'Eid greeting cards, to help Muslims celebrate the end of Ramadan's month of fasting.)

Personally, I'd rather they kept the religious stuff out of public school programs, and let the kids learn all those hymns and such for programs at their places of worship (if any). At least here in the north there are plenty of "winter wonderland" songs we can all relate to. As for southern climates where "the holiday season" just means short days and maybe coat-wearing weather... I guess I'm just too provincial to know what kinds of songs you people would sing this time of year.