Category: default || By jt3y

Letter to the editor, "No response from Village," McKeesport, Pa., Daily News, June 13, 2007, p. 6:

I am still upset and very disappointed with the McKeesport International Village. I thought they would get back to me with a response to my letter, but nothing. I still cannot believe how they feel they are right about not letting us dance because we are not ethnic enough.

Western Square Dancing had been around for a very long time, with people of all nationalities performing this dance. But you people in charge of entertainment feel we are not ethnic enough. But most of all we are Americans, which should give us the right to dance.

Ethnic people are allowed to perform, but we Americans are only allowed to pay to get in and pay for food and spend our money on all the ethnic people. Once again, we think you are really wrong. Once again we Americans are pushed aside and let these foreigners have their way with America and you at the Village are backing them. (...)

I think everyone who agrees with me, please let me know. I really feel like a lot of you feel the same as we do. Write to the Daily News and let them know about how you feel about us Americans being pushed aside ...

Martha Bradley
Elizabeth Twp.

. . .

Dear Martha:

I am not an official representative of anything. Hell, I'm not even a resident of the city. But this is the second of your ridiculous letters to appear in the Daily News, and since I'm the self-appointed chronicler of things around the Mon-Yough area, I've deputized myself to respond.

I cannot prove that you are a far-right crackpot, but I have some strong suspicions. It's actually kind of refreshing to read your letters. I thought your particular brand of prejudice went out before the Great Depression.

Martha, you live in the United States, the richest, most powerful country in the world (even if it has been mortgaged to the Chinese by Congress and Wal-Mart). And you think the City of McKeesport is pushing around Americans? The City of McKeesport?

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.

(Note: I am not laughing "with" you, Martha.)

I understand you feel badly. I felt badly, too, when "Dukes of Hazzard" was cancelled, but I was 11 years old at the time. I grew up.

Grow up, Martha.

Let's set aside for a minute the fact that most, if not all, of the performers at International Village are second- or third-generation Americans. They're hardly "foreigners."

First of all, you do not have a "right" to do anything. You're not even a McKeesport taxpayer, for cripes' sake. Who are you to tell the City of McKeesport who they can and can't invite to anything?

Don't tell the City of McKeesport what to do. It has enough damned problems without your Bill O'Reilly-esque wing-nuttery.

Second, I've said this before at the Almanac, but it bears repeating in capital letters and bold type: AMERICANS ARE SURROUNDED BY AMERICAN CULTURE EVERY SINGLE DAY. WE DO NOT NEED TO CELEBRATE AMERICAN CULTURE IN AMERICA.

International Village celebrates cultural traditions that are disappearing. Arrogant, conceited Americans with a sense of entitlement are in no danger of disappearing. Your letter is ample proof.

Now, if you'd like to celebrate American culture in Hungary, Italy, Poland or one of those other places full of "foreigners," hey, buy yourself a ticket. I'll chip in money to send you out of the country.

Leave International Village to the Tamburitzans, and I'm sure the Tammies will be happy to leave the John Birch Society to you.

I hope the Village's organizers give your letters the response they deserve --- which is none. Frankly, they work too damned hard for you to accuse them of some sort of bizarre discrimination against fellow Americans.

Personally, as an International Village attendee, I have no more desire to see square dancers at International Village than I want to see McDonald's hamburgers on sale there.

Come to think of it, "McDonald" is a Scottish name, and "hamburgers" are named after a city in Germany. Maybe you should try complaining about them next.

Signed,
A grandson of Hungarian and German immigrants (a.k.a. "a foreigner")