That Coca-Cola Commercial

Super Bowl 2014

For the most part, the commercials during this year’s Super Bowl were duds, not unlike Peyton’s performance (I am still in a state of grief over that). The ones that were meant to be funny were not so funny. The ones that were meant to be serious excelled in dullness. If you were rooting for Denver (like I was), it was hours of ho-hum. For me, the only highlight was Bruno Mars’ cool moves during the halftime show.

Actually though, there was one minute that was better than the Mars moves. Coca-Cola sponsored a commercial of America the Beautiful being sung in Spanish, Tagalog, Mandarin, Hindi, Keres (Pueblo), Senegalese-French, Arabic, and English. I turned to a friend as soon as the commercial concluded and said, “Oh, what some of my 'friends' are going to say…”

Shortly, I was engaged in conversation with one of my friends on Facebook who was denouncing Coke with great fervor. As I engaged into the conversation, it was not long until I was told to live in Syria or Iraq, that I was a liberal, and good luck after I vote for Hillary. Really? Because I defended people singing how great America is in their heart language?

It got better, of course. To make his case, he said, “Try making a commercial like that in Syria.” To which I replied, “That’s the point! We can. They cannot.” He deleted that post. Don’t mess with me.

The rants will continue, I am sure. “Speak English or go home!” But such rants will fail to take into consideration that our founding fathers were fluent in many languages – French, Spanish, Italian, Latin, and Greek. Interestingly, our eighth president’s language was Dutch, learning English later. I don’t recall any of them being told to “Speak English or go home!”

This is a discussion that hits home for me – literally. Our home is periodically filled with those whose heart language is not English. Arabic, Spanish, Mandarin, Bengal, Hindi, Russian, Tagalog, Japanese, and a host of other languages have graced our walls and we are the richer for it. And their speakers all had one thing in common. They were so glad to be here in the United States.

So, bravo Coca-Cola! I raise my glass of Coke and say, “Well done!” America is beautiful in every language!