Why “You’re In America, Speak English” Is The Most Un-American Thing You Can Say

Our Founding Fathers even said it was nonsense.

I recall a frequent scenario a few years back when I was living in Miami. I would drop by my favorite hole-in-the-wall pub, Miami Beach’s famous On The Rocks. I’d step outside to get some air, and often encountered an older patron wearing a shirt with Uncle Sam that read, “I WANT YOU… TO SPEAK ENGLISH!”

For those of you who have visited Miami, I’m sure you had a splendid time in South Beach or Coconut Grove. But here’s a little factoid from residents: walk outside the touristy areas, and you won’t encounter many souls who can speak a lick of English.

Miami is the Latino capital of America. At the 2010 census, almost 70% of Miami-Dade County’s population is Hispanic. Over half the population was born abroad. It’s actually quite the culture shock for many people who move in or arrive on vacation. And if you move in and think señorito is a word, boy you’re going to have a hard time getting by.

Now, I understand it can get frustrating trying to buy a gallon of milk when the clerk doesn’t understand what you’re saying. Here, in your country. I get it, it’s weird.

But with the growing political separation in the United States, the rise of entitled “Karens & Kevins,” shouting at restaurant staff, and social media platforms’ detrimental curated-content policies, the decades-old phrase is more mainstream than ever. But we need to be clear on the facts, because historically, English-speakers were late to the colony, and our own Founding Fathers baked it out of law.

America has no “National Language”

The first and most immediate reason that phrase is un-American is that English is not the official language of America—in fact, the US is one of the few nations with no official or national language.

In 1780, John Adams proposed the idea of setting a “national language” with English. The other Founding Fathers rejected his proposal multiple times, agreeing that the idea of mandating a specific language was “un-American,” “undemocratic,” and a “threat to individual liberty”—basically everything America stands for. Just like mandating a specific religion or political alignment, declaring that all those living in America must be bound to a specific language goes against the founding concept that America is a place for freedom of expression and individual liberty.

It’s also worth mentioning that before the arrival of European colonists, the indigenous people living on the continents for tens of thousands of years had countless languages of their own, almost none of which anyone outside of their communities speak today.

During the civil rights era of the 1960’s, America’s intentional lack of a national language was the precedent for federal mandates that all states must provide all government forms and vital documents in languages that reflect a certain percentage of their population—and for more obscure languages, accommodations must be made. Therefore, federal documents for Americans are offered in dozens of languages from Chinese to Dutch to Navajo.

The (re: re: re:)-discovery of America—none of them spoke English.

Now let’s go back a few hundred years and see where America started. The first European settlers to land on the mainland of the Americas was Leif Erikson of Norway nearly 500 years before Columbus, setting up shop in Canada.

Christopher Columbus, the man widely (and inaccurately) accepted as the European who discovered America, was born in Italy. His voyages to the New World were commissioned under Spain’s monarchy. He first landed in the Bahamas, later founding settlements in Haiti and central America. Modern US soil was never once touched by Columbus.

Also worth noting, evidence shows that Columbus didn’t even speak English. He spoke Italian, Spanish, Castilian, and Ligurian as his first language.

Next—the name of the country, “America,” is named after the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci, who devised the revolutionary concept that the lands Columbus arrived on in 1492 were part of a completely different continent.

In fact, the first permanent European settlement on US soil was Saint Augustine, Florida, in 1565 by Spain’s Pedro Menéndez de Avilés. So not only were both Erikson and Columbus not English-speakers, nor did they actually arrive in the United States, but the first American settlement was a Spanish-speaking one.

What languages are spoken in America?

Just a few languages spoken by significant portions of the US population as a first or second native language include Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Russian, Creole, Chinese (including Mandarin, Cantonese and Fuzhou), multiple Arabic languages, and an array of India’s 22 main languages.

Amish communities speak “Pennsylvania Dutch,” an old form of Dutch. Large portions of North and South Dakota hold German as a proud second-language. Louisiana and New England states support French, Michigan has Finnish, while Florida holds French, Creole, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, and multiple Caribbean languages across their populations. Spanish is widespread everywhere, and Arabic and Chinese from coast to coast, just to name a few.

So, how did we end up with English?

As our de-facto most common language of most modern communication, the first wave of English-speakers settled in Jamestown almost half a century after Spain settled in Florida. Plymouth County was established aver 100 years after Saint Augustine was settled.

Complex historic and geopolitical reasons, from ripping the lands out directly beneath the native population’s feet to British monarchs staking claim to the territory, (you know, the ones America fought a war to get away from?), English simply became the most widespread language by chance… or more often actually, by violence.

Now, it’s worth noting that several states have declared English as their “state language.” But Alabama calling the Northern Flicker its official State bird doesn’t demote the Bald Eagle as the classic American icon. Nor does Oregon’s blue-and-yellow Beaver state flag make the Red, White, and Blue any less of the American one.

Honorable Mention: The Flag Code

With that said, let’s jump over to the Flag Code, considering most of the English-speaking anal Karens love to wear the stars and stripes as clothing.

The Flag Code is a set of federal laws declaring what can and can’t be done with the American flag. While none of the laws are followed with punishment or have any sort of consequence for their violations (that would be a bit ludicrous) they are still Federal laws. Speaking on the grounds of what is and isn’t truly American, picking and choosing which laws we decide we want to follow and which we feel like are completely fine to break is not a valid argument, especially when it comes to something as “sacred” as the national flag.

Developed in the 1920’s and adopted by Congress in 1942 — here’s a summary of the most violated parts of the the Flag Code:

4 U.S. Code § 8 — Respect for flag

(d) The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery.

(e) The flag should never be fastened, displayed, used, or stored in such a manner as to permit it to be easily torn, soiled, or damaged in any way (talking to you, truckers with a toiled flag on the back of their F-150).

(g) The flag should never have placed upon it, nor on any part of it, nor attached to it any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, design, picture, or drawing of any nature (for all you Q lunatics).

(i) The flag should never be used for advertising purposes in any manner whatsoever. It should not be embroidered on such articles as cushions or handkerchiefs and the like, printed or otherwise impressed on paper napkins or boxes or anything that is designed for temporary use and discard (happy 4th of July!)

In fact, the entire law is worth reading if you have the time.

So the next time you see someone looking something like this, shouting at people speaking Spanish that they should “go back to Mexico if they want to speak Spanish,” you have a strong background in the history and facts that no such argument has any place in America.

In fact, for purposes of clarity, everything you’re about to see below is a violation of Federal law:

A final word about Miami

Miami is a gem. A beautiful utopia situated at the very edge of our continental body, a place so foreign to the rest of our country it’s truly spectacular. You go from neighborhood to neighborhood, Little Haiti to Little Havana, Doral to Hialeah—every pocket has their own little community of some place in Latin America, along with them their music, manners, (and most importantly to me), their food. Nowhere else in America have I had a better empanada than Doggi’s on Biscayne.

Miami is a magical retreat to experience the lives of others who come for peace and prosperity. It truly is a melting pot, a one-of-a-kind treasure situated at the perfect latitude for weather and sea. Let those who come live in peace, let us preserve their history as they bring it, and welcome their company.