Right before 2016 ended, two similar stories came out regarding white people victimizing people of color for speaking languages other than English in front of them. It was nothing less than disgusting. These people are disgusting.

In Louisville, Kentucky, a white woman yelled at a Hispanic woman for speaking Spanish while in line at a JCPenney's. The Latina was going through the transaction with the salesperson when the white woman started impatiently yelling racial slurs and saying things like, “Speak English. You’re in America. If you don’t know it, learn it.” The video went viral after being posted on Facebook.

Within the same week, Adam Saleh was kicked off a Delta flight out of London for speaking Arabic. Saleh, a known YouTube star, posted a video in which he explains how a group of white people told flight attendants they felt “unsafe” after hearing him speak Arabic on the phone with his mom. They even tried to kick out a man with a beard who just happened to be sitting nearby. Saleh is a popular prankster known for race baiting, and there was a question of whether this was a hoax.

Both stories highlight the growing tensions between cultures and races in this country that have become so much more visible with our media and technology. But they are two stories of many. Xenophobic people love to say “It’s America, speak English.” They are under the assumption that English is the official language of this country when in fact that is false. While most states have adopted the language as official, it is not country-wide. Furthermore, because xenophobia seems to be on the rise, people would confuse “English-official” with “English-only” in yet another exclusionary, oppressive tactic.

When these xenophobic – arguably racist – people tell others their non-English language makes them uncomfortable, and it is so obvious they fear what they do not know. That is on them, not the multilingual members of our community. Ultimately, this fear makes these people look ignorant.

An example of this was when Donald Trump’s son Eric took pictures with the Latinas wearing shirts that said “Latinas contra Trump,”meaning Latinas againstTrump. That goes to show Eric Trump wasn’t willing to even ask what it meant, but rather tried to tokenize these women instead. Moreover, it means that there was not a single Spanish-speaking person in his audience that supported him. Because what supporter would allow that message to be publicized?

English is one language of thousands, and it comes in third as the most spoken language in the world, with Chinese coming in first, and Spanish coming in second. This also relates to the growing number of Asian and Latinx minority groups in this country.

I was raised to believe being bilingual was an important skill, and that language was a window into another culture. Language helps to preserve or maintain a culture. Words are the most powerful thing we’ve got; they’re what separates us from animals. I can only hope that one day I will be able to speak the languages of my peoples.

I say we all take up a new language and continue to speak it in front of those xenophobes. Leave them behind. Maybe if they feel stupid enough or scared enough, they’ll do something positive about it, like try to learn it. Don’t let anyone ever tell you that being bilingual is anything other than an asset.