Over 13 years ago my wife and I selected a Shakira song, 'Wherever Whenever,' as the first dance at our wedding. Shakira wasn't too well known outside of the Latino community at the time, but with my Miami roots, I guess I was closer to her scene. How times have changed with Pitbull (born in Miami) MC'ing the American Music Awards and Shakira now 2 for 2 with her incredibly popular 2010 and 2014 World Cup videos.
Having spent 12 years in Europe I felt a real affinity for the 'old country,' but the ties just aren't there any longer. Admittedly, I'm probably behind the times on this. Socially and economically, we need to embrace our hemisphere for what it is and chart our own destiny. Its not isolationism, but when people ask if my daughters will study French (my original option, and we in fact went through 3 years of French au-pairs) or Chinese (that would be an even bigger joke, given lack of any family connections whatsoever), the logical conclusion is Spanish.
Sure, as with any nation or continent, we experience boom and bust. But with less dependence on foreign energy and its baggage, less dependence on trade where the trade-off with some countries seems to be the willingness to take part in an unending cycle of intellectual theft cat-and-mouse, and home-grown ingenuity that manifests itself in places like Amazon's latest 'factories' - I don't know what else to call them - our future in the new year looks bright. I've just got to bone up on my language skills, something I've never been that great at.
