Speaking Spanish in America
The story of a viral article from 2016
I live in the US with my Peruvian born wife and my two infant children. We’re a bilingual family accustomed to speaking Spanish in public and at home. During the 2016 Republican primaries, my family noticed an uptick in hostilities that we attributed to the divisive rhetoric of the Trump campaign.
I originally sent this article as a letter to the editor of the local paper. By the end of the year, this article had earned more web views than any other story published by the newspaper that year. The last I saw it had been shared over 100,000 times.
During the article’s original run, I was inundated with messages and comments (most of them supportive and positive…a few hateful). It was an overwhelming experience. Oddly, despite the enormous success of the article, the newspaper declined to publish a follow up. However, the local culture and entertainment publication graciously ran my next article, you can read it here.
In light of the increased racial tension we’ve seen in our society, I feel this article has again become relevant. It serves as a reminder of what many of us predicted would happen if Trump gained the White House.
