Im not quite sure whether to be amused or sickened by the angry responses on social media to the multi-lingual Coke ad. We are, after all, a nation of immigrants; our earliest forefathers were illegal immigrants who forcefully took the land away from its previous inhabitants, and our treatment of those first Native peoples has not improved much over the intervening centuries. Furthermore, the American version of the English language is an eclectic mix of words and phrases and expressions from many other languages. Just as the assimilation of foreign phrases enriches the expressive power of American English, our ethnic diversity enriches and strengthens us as a country. we should be celebrating that diversity, rather than angrily clinging to privilege for the few who imagine their cultural connections more pure. Try to remember, when you see people speaking Spanish to each other on the street, that most of them speak English as well, which makes them perhaps smarter than those of us who are fluent in only one language. And, if the twitter feeds are any example, they may well speak and write it a lot better than the people who are objecting to the Coke Commercial. We used to pride ourselves on being welcoming. The poem on our beloved Statue of Liberty (a gift, by the way, from a French sculptor) says: Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to be free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shores. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door. I thought the singing of America the Beautiful in different languages was a wonderful expression of inclusive patriotism, and I applaud the people at Coca Cola.
Posted on: Mon, 03 Feb 2014 18:15:53 +0000
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