Dear Editor: 

If you’re a practitioner of arts criticism and reportage, as I’ve been for many years, you learn that if you’re willing to dish it out, you should be willing to take it. Still, I have to take exception to Alida Fernandez-Chacon’s letter to the editor last week chiding me for quoting an example of mayor Claudia M. Frometa’s awful syntax vis-à-vis her (Frometa’s) uninformed commentary on the arts in Downey. 

Ms. Chacon seems to think that pointing out bad grammar in a public official is akin to ridiculing people like Chacon’s grandfather, a Cuban immigrant who, despite the memorable and comic use of malapropisms in English, has been a business success in his long life in the U.S., much beloved by his family, whom he’s generously helped along the way.

I agree that to make fun of someone because he (or she) has an imperfect grasp of a second language is as cruel as making fun of someone with a natural speech impediment. It’s a harmful, immature, stupid thing to do.

That isn’t the issue, however. The issue is, what should we legitimately expect of a public servant elected to represent us?

I do not know Frometa personally, and in fact am impressed by how assiduously she’s worked to fulfill the responsibilities of her new job. Her refusal to back down to the verbal abuse of a mob of irate Tenant Union protesters during one council session is the single most courageous act I’ve seen in years of city-watching.

At best, even if we find them wanting, we still owe our public servants a modicum of civility. But what do they owe us?  You would expect a level of experience and knowledge that would make good the promise of competency in office. You would expect that they don’t misrepresent themselves in a way that compromises their function and embarrasses them, their colleagues and the city. You would expect honesty and good judgment. You would expect fairness and patience, with complex issues that take time to resolve, irate people with personal agendas, and even whackos at the lectern.

You would expect a level of education that gives them the ability to find out what they don’t know when confronted with something outside their comfort zone.

When it comes to remedying the near-collapse of culture and the arts in Downey—things that are vital to any civilized population-- I’ve watched the city fail for over a decade. The council tried to do something about it around 2010. But each successive round of elections has produced a group that, when it comes to enabling a robust arts scene, has been more narrow, uninformed and incompetent than the last. There’s local opinion gathering that the (mostly) newly elected group currently occupying the dais is the worst in Downey history.

That’s why I, as an arts advocate, mindful of all the bone-rattling potholes effective advocacy can lead to, fear where this current crop is taking us. And that’s why I highlight Frometa’s atrocious grammar, literally quoted from reporter Alex Dominguez’ recording of the recent city council meeting that took up the issue of the arts in Downey. 

The Elizabethan poet, critic, playwright (“Volpone” ) and Shakespeare contemporary,  Ben Jonson,  famously said, “Speak that I may know thee.” Every time we open our mouths, we reveal something about ourselves; our quality of mind, our temperament, our character, our values and priorities. Most of all, we reveal our capacity to organize our thoughts. That’s what grammar in any language is designed to do, because most of the time our thoughts are an aggregate of spontaneous impulses, images, conflicting emotions, unformed flying references. Our capacity to cohere this inner jumble into systematic language represents our ability to organize ourselves.

I don’t know if English is a second language for Frometa. It really doesn’t matter. It’s the one she’s chosen to use in her role as a Downey representative. When she speaks, she doesn’t just speak for herself. She speaks for Downey. She talks to other cities, to media, to state officials and representatives, and if called, to the nation. And, of course, to the official record of Downey civic life. In a word, history. 

That’s how we are and will be judged. And that’s why, in my opinion, we should listen hard not only to what our civic leaders say, but how they say it. It speaks for all of us.

Lawrence Christon
Downey