Teach
02-13-2017, 07:01 AM
“Trump Devuelvenos Texas,” the Mexican protest sign read. As I looked at the photo with the sign that translated: “Trump, Give Us Texas Back,” I thought about my days as a history teacher. The days in which I discussed with my students “The Mexican War”.
That war brought back memories of a 19th century Irish folk song. It was a song that U.S. soldiers who fought in the Mexican War (1846-1848) would frequently sing as they huddled around the campfire. The song was called: “Green Grow the Lilacs”.
Well, during the Mexican War, the Mexicans would send out espias (spies) to try and learn what the Americans were planning. The spies would creep close to the American campfires and would listen for any information they could report back to their superiors.
On several occasions, these spies were asked by their commanders, “Que has aprendido? (What have you learned?). Their reply, in many cases, was, “All we hear are ‘Green Grow the Lilacs’”. It seems that native Spanish speakers have some difficulty pronouncing a second "r" in "green grows", which was elided into "green-gos". That evolved into “Los Gringos”.
That war brought back memories of a 19th century Irish folk song. It was a song that U.S. soldiers who fought in the Mexican War (1846-1848) would frequently sing as they huddled around the campfire. The song was called: “Green Grow the Lilacs”.
Well, during the Mexican War, the Mexicans would send out espias (spies) to try and learn what the Americans were planning. The spies would creep close to the American campfires and would listen for any information they could report back to their superiors.
On several occasions, these spies were asked by their commanders, “Que has aprendido? (What have you learned?). Their reply, in many cases, was, “All we hear are ‘Green Grow the Lilacs’”. It seems that native Spanish speakers have some difficulty pronouncing a second "r" in "green grows", which was elided into "green-gos". That evolved into “Los Gringos”.