An immigration attorney in Tulsa, Oklahoma, takes a call from someone demanding he advertise only in English, claiming it's the nation's official language. The attorney pushes back on the historical claims and argues that America's real language is capitalism, which lets businesses serve whoever they want.
So I'm an immigration attorney and my primary office is in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but we serve clients all over the country. And, you know, I'm a business, so I run ads on Facebook, on YouTube, on, you know, social media, local media, all of it. And from time to time I get some interesting phone calls. That's the nice way of saying it. And of course, this is all started in the last few months when this rhetoric of being pro-immigrant equals being anti-American has been raised up more. And so here's a taste of it. This is a taste of having an immigration office, being an immigration attorney, and having an office that helps immigrants, and specifically Spanish-speaking. Hi, thank you for calling the Law Firm Las Abogadas. How can I help you?
¿Cómo puedo ayudarle? Um, yeah, you put your ad on Facebook in Spanish, so we don't appreciate racist people coming to our country. So what you're doing is you're catering to Spanish people and you're being racist towards anybody that speaks English.
How dare you just serve Spanish-speaking people and, and provide messaging for them? How dare you? It's not fair. You're racist.
So maybe you should put it in English and Spanish because if you're going to advertise in our country, the least you can do is use the language that's official of this country. And the reason that is because we shed blood for over 300 years to make it English.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's what all those wars were about. The Revolutionary War, the Civil War, all the other wars was about making English the official language. Wow, history books are wrong, I guess, because I thought it was about democracy, it was about independence, it was about justice and equal rights and equal treatment. Man, I didn't, I didn't realize it was just about making English the official language.
So try to remember that next time you put up your ad, because I sure don't appreciate it. And if you don't like it, I don't give a shit. You can go back to wherever you came from. Yeah, you can record it too.
Fact: I came from Oklahoma, born and raised Oklahoma and Sooner born and Sooner bred, and I have red dirt that runs through my veins. So yeah, so I guess I'm coming back to Oklahoma.
You don't give a shit about that either. You're racist. You're racist. You care nothing except for Spanish-speaking people. So why don't you go to a country that represents Spanish people speaking? Because we don't. This is America. English is the official language. So take your ad somewhere else.
Well, social media, Google, YouTube, television stations, radio stations, they seem to appreciate my ads. They sure don't turn away the universal language of money, right? Um, so it's just funny. It's funny, and I have to laugh at it, but it's actually really sad. That these are the kind of phone calls we are getting. This is not the first one either, which is even more sad, especially that's coming from my home state, which is, I've always thought of as welcoming and embracive of the community spirit. But to get a lecture on how English is the official language, and that's what this country fought for, being able to speak English, and to isolate themselves from the other countries in the world, um, and not being able to communicate. If anything, the official language of the United States is capitalism and the ability for businesses to cater to various clientele and to practice the way they want to and advertise and run their businesses. Capitalism is the true language of the United States, and clearly this man thinks that by not speaking English in my ads, I'm not, I'm being racist, anti-English speakers, 'cause they're a protective class, 'cause they have had their rights trampled on, 'cause those are the folks who are being kidnapped or killed or, you know, just mistreated. This is to all the immigration attorneys and all those individuals, businesses who cater and help out minorities and Spanish-speaking clients or any other language. You know, thank you. Likely we'll get more hate like this, and it's very ignorant, and this is not a good representation, I think, of all what the United States is and Americans. But, you know, this ain't gonna stop us. This ain't gonna stop my firm. It's not gonna stop me. And it's not gonna stop the true spirit of the United States, which is welcoming to immigrants and capitalism, right? So, yeah, this is America. Like he said, this is America.
