Last week I was at a school in Alviso. Right after the school day commenced, the students went to the cafeteria, where the faculty were having a sing-along for them. It seemed like there were a lot of children's songs, but hippie folk songs as well, such as Puff the Magic Dragon (which isn't really about drugs?). The two women who were leading, one singing and one playing the guitar, were old enough to be members of the hippie generation. Or were they simply influenced by the hippie "counterculture" and its music? Or just modern Uhmericans with no traditional music going back more than 50 years? Maybe these were the only songs they knew and could teach.

The teachers may have been singing songs in English, but a devil's advocate could ask what happened to the supposed liberal respect for local culture? Why weren't the students singing Spanish songs? After all, the area is predominantly Hispanic, But, Alviso does seem to be one of the more assimilated areas. And the district does not have a ESL program or use a bilingual curriculum. Still, if the parents complained about the lack of Spanish songs, what would happen? In San Jose, it is not unusual for students of all ethnicities to learn a Spanish (or even Vietnamese) song for a holiday performance.