I watched the Super Bowl (along with however many other millions of people) on February 2nd. I very much enjoyed the recitation of the Declaration of Independence before the show started. I thought the opera singer did a great job of the nation anthem. I thought the commercials were pretty lame. And then I saw the Coca-Cola ad. You know, the one where "America the Beautiful" was sung in several different languages. My instant reaction was "no more Coke for this house!" The next day I started seeing different blog postings with all sorts of different reactions to the ad.
One of the most common arguments on the side of Coca-Cola seems to be that we are a nation of immigrants (true) and that most of our ancestors spoke a language other than English when they arrived in this country (also true). However, I would say the biggest problem with this line of reasoning is that OUR ancestors came to this country and KNEW they'd have to assimilate to American culture and HAVE to speak English. My great-grandparents didn't come here expecting Americans to cater to their Gaelic and help them out. They had to speak English to survive - and they did. My father-in-law came here, speaking no English at all, but he learned. He didn't expect people to speak German and help him. Let's not even talk about the hoops they all had to jump through to get here - paperwork, waiting, money, a reference, a job, an address...
If you move to Germany, you damn well better learn German. If you move to Mexico, you damn well better speak Spanish. Come to America, and you'd better know English! Assimilate! That melting pot?? That was YOU melting into America - we would absorb things from your country (spaghetti, chopsticks, corned beef and cabbage, hamburgers), but you would become an AMERICAN.
You want to represent the many different cultures, then you show different American houses, Americans in different national garb, in different religious buildings. But they need to speak English. Just like all the other immigrants.
So, yeah, I will never again buy Coke. Not just because of the other languages used (Arabic?? Hindi?? Was there one European language??), but also because of the gay couple prominently featured. Homosexuality is wrong - end of story.
