"God Bless America"

A couple months ago, our adult English as a Second Language (ESL) program started incorporating monthly student assemblies. We fold up the four lunch tables in our postage-stamp-sized cafeteria; herd all the students, staff and volunteers in there (standing room only) and.... show off for each other in English. Sometimes, a student reads a paragraph that s/he wrote. A group of students might interview a volunteer tutor or demonstrate a language-learning game. Once in a while, I make an announcement, but I really want the students to be in charge.

Last night, a couple of students interviewed their tutor; then my (rather headstrong)student Carlos led the assembly in song. Carlos keeps my life interesting. He told me a few weeks ago that he likes to sing God Bless America in the car as he drives; and that he, along with the rest of his group, would teach it at the next assembly. There are two other people in his group. Lidia is easy-going and was cool with this idea. Eugenio is very shy and reserved. He looked sideways at Carlos with murder in this eyes. Personally, I don't much like God Bless America. People are starting to treat it like the national anthem, which it is not. I have to admit that it is a good ESL song, though. It's all in the present tense, with easy vocabulary! Just because it's hokey as hell... hokiness, like humor, often doesn't cross cultural barriers.


"Teacher, you get for me the words? We practice. We teach everybody sing along."
"Yeah, sure Carlos."
To make sure it was perfect, I Googled it and brought the lyrics for him to look at. He was disappointed. He wanted to know why there weren't more verses. I told him that this is what I found when I Googled it, and I wasn't sure there even were more verses. Anyway, maybe one verse was enough?


As the scheduled date came closer, he told me that he had the song on a CD; I should have a CD player ready for the assembly. No problem. Last night, he came in and proffered a disk. "First track," he said. He went to his class, and I cued up the CD player. On came Celine Dion.


Gooooodddddd
[whispered] Bless
Ameeeerrrrricaaaaa (trill)!

Laaaaand (flourish)
that I (pregnant pause) loooooovvvve (warble)!

Oh, holy s***. I popped the disk out and hustled up to Carlos' class.
"Carlos! This is Celine Dion!"
"Yes! Is good, yeah?"
"Carlos! People can't sing along with this."
"No?"
I demonstrated why not, sighing and posturing with the back of my hand pressed to my forehead. He got it.
"Is difficult Celine Dion."
"Yes."
"I have other in my car."
"You have another one?"
"Yes, faster."
"Good!"
"But," he said sadly, "is shorter."
"Perfect!"
Eugenio looked happier than he had in weeks.


No time to spare. I cued it up and realized, as the violins began to swell, that it was LeAnne Rimes. Still enough orchestration, "Ooooohs" and key changes that I had to hide my prickling face behind the kitchen counter a couple of times; but not quite as florid as Celine. Carlos was in paradise at the front of the crowd with a stick; he pointed out each word, neatly printed on a piece of poster board. If the resulting applause was partially due to relief, I don't think he picked up on it.