Trump’s “Speak English” Order Explained—in Spanish

Melvis Acosta, although he is not a member of Our Generation, played a crucial role in helping us set up this website. We are proud to post a video here Acosta wrote and reported for Mother Jones—on President Trump’s executive order that, the President says, makes English the official language of the United States. You’ll find Acosta’s story here.

Acosta writes: “In the executive order, Trump called the action a way to “promote unity” and “cultivate a shared American culture,” but critics disagree.  “The Congressional Hispanic Caucus responded to the executive order on X, formerly Twitter, by saying that the country “has never had an official language” and that the order was an “attack on our diversity”—and also that the tens of millions of Americans who speak other languages aren’t “any less American” for it.

“67.8 million Americans, to be exact. That’s one in every five people living in the United States. The most popular language outside of English is Spanish, with about 13 percent of the population, or 41.7 million people, speaking it at home in 2019.