This is America, No Foreigners Allowed! by Amanda Garcia

The Superbowl is so idolized that it is treated as a patriotic holiday, no different than the Fourth of July. You would think that this country has become open-minded after so many years of racial equality; however, this was not the case for a good portion of Americans who watched the Coca Cola commercial aired during the Superbowl XLVIII. In this commercial, “America the Beautiful” was sung in other languages to signify America’s plethora of racial groups is what truly makes America beautiful.

Many bombarded social networking sites about the commercial. Tweets such as “This is America, speak English” surfaced Twitter just moments after. My personal favorite, “F you coke the national anthem wasn’t made for your gook and Mexican talking. STFU!!! Speak English” really exposed the level of ignorance in America’s vision. Not to mention that some Americans think the national anthem, with the aforementioned tweet, is “America the Beautiful”- our national anthem is the Star Spangled Banner for those wondering.  The following are some of the tweets that were uploaded to Twitter:

            Some went as far as boycotting Coca Cola beverages because the commercial was not American. But what does it really mean to be an American? Is it a race? Does it mean white superiority? Being American pertains to an ethnicity, a culture containing traditions and values with which we identify; we collectively have rituals and ways of life that can be traced to certain racial backgrounds. We have practices that are widely diverse and for the most part accepted. So then why are people still attaching a racial association to the term American?

            Race-thinking has been deep-rooted in our minds for ages. It was once believed that race was a biological difference or rather a defect. We as Americans need race today because of an identity crisis still present. There are so many customs integrated in the country that there is no distinct identity. Thus, race is needed to make sense of differences and we use this ideology to sometimes stigmatize those differences. According to certain theorists, racial identity is a social construction, a figment a society has made up to inconsistently group people on a hierarchical basis. It is also based on geographical and skin color differences such as White or Asian. Being American was seen as predominately White because of the European settlers, who by the way were not the first on U.S. land.

            Although it does not necessarily look the same as it did in the early 1900's, racism is used in a contemporary way to justify itself, meaning racism has transformed itself to stay alive today. Race is a part of our identities as we can never do away with the concept. Years and years later, this concept shows up in a racial project from Coca Cola in 2014. Race is still viewed negatively, especially for racial minorities. What many people fail to understand is that racial minorities are used as scapegoats for the bad things that go bump in the night and are still labeled “minority”; however, racial minorities are not the only bad people in America, in which Whites are just as capable. As a result, race-thinking and the ever-so ingrained concept of race blurs the image of what being American means.

            It is American to sing “America the Beautiful” because it is part of American ethnicity to be patriotic; but somehow it is not American for different racial groups to sing it in another language even if it comes from a patriotic place in their hearts; it is only seen as being disloyal to the American people. We speak English but it is not the only language spoken. A language is a mode of communication, not a race. It is a part of an ethnicity, particularly American ethnicity to be so diverse in language. White Americans want so badly for other ethnic groups to assimilate and be American, but when they lose their sense of native culture, it still is not good enough; they are marked forever as non-American and foreign. One can still be American by holding American traditions and at the same time holding Vietnamese or Polish traditions. America is comprised of many racial groups, but as a whole it takes on its own ethnicity of being multicultural. 
Click here to view the Coca Cola commercial