Ibaialde's Corner

In 1992 Mary Fisher took the podium at the Republican National Convention to talk about her battle with the AIDS. Here I bring you that famous appeal to her government. (From www.americanrhetoric.com)

(…) We may take refuge in our stereotypes, but we cannot hide there long, because HIV asks only one thing of those it attacks. Are you human? And this is the right question. Are you human? Because people with HIV have not entered some alien state of being. They are human. They have not earned cruelty, and they do not deserve meanness. They don’t benefit from being isolated or treated as outcasts. Each of them is exactly what God made: a person; not evil, deserving of our judgment; not victims, longing for our pity — people, ready for support and worthy of compassion.(…)

a) Transcription of speech
b) Download A whisper of AIDS

Two Hispanic names are among the top ten most common names in the country. They are Garcia and Rodriguez. Each name is shared by more than eight hundred thousand people. The report says more than ninety percent of all people with those names are Hispanic.

One newspaper report says it is probably the first time that any non-English sounding name has been listed among the most common. The presence of those names on the list shows that an increasing number of Hispanic people are living in the United States. The number grew by fifty-eight percent in the nineteen nineties to almost thirteen percent of the population. (From Voice of America in Special English)

a) Download Garcia and Rodriguez among American Top 10 Names

b) Transcription of Article