Savannah Holguin is a sophomore studying English literature at Irvine Valley College. This essay was originally developed in "Our Unsilencing," a commentary bootcamp at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism in partnership with Unseen.
Recently, I asked my parents why they never taught me Spanish, their first language. “We were embarrassed,” my mother said.
They grew up in Orange County during the 1980s, a time in California far more hostile to Spanish speakers than when Bad Bunny delivered the Super Bowl halftime show earlier this month. In 1986, voters passed Proposition 63 by a nearly 3-to-1 margin, making English the state’s official language. That was 39 years before President Trump signed an executive order trying to do the same thing for the whole country.
That political climate caused many immigrants to actively avoid speaking their native language, especially to their children. My mother told me she was put into special education, where she had to take English as a second language. Over time, English became her primary language, a change that would eventually result in me speaking only English.
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The generational effect was by design. Proposition 63 was part of an English-only movement created by John Tanton, a Michigan eye doctor and eugenicist who helped establish the country’s most prominent anti-immigrant think tanks. In a leaked document to staff at one of those organizations, he warned of a “Latin onslaught.”
Tanton died in 2019, before he could see Bad Bunny perform almost entirely in Spanish at the Super Bowl.
As I watched the show, I thought of the countless other Gen Z Latinas who also grew up disconnected from our linguistic roots as a result of Tanton’s efforts. Bad Bunny didn’t just perform; he modeled pride and gave us permission to reclaim the parts of us that anti-immigrant forces seek to erase.
This represents a radical shift. Only five months ago, when I was beginning my sophomore year in college, I confided in my Mexican American English professor that I did not feel confident enough to call myself Latina. “Your voice was taken from you,” she said.
Mariel Garza
I didn’t know exactly what she meant at the time, but her words resonated. She articulated something I didn’t yet know how to express.
Despite originally hailing from Santa Ana, a city in Orange County that’s around 80 percent Latino, I did not feel “Mexican enough” as a young child. As one of the only kids in school who did not grow up bilingual, I couldn't join in gossip sessions, or “chisme,” since I didn’t know what my peers were saying. Whenever a teacher would tell a joke in Spanish, I would sit bewildered as others laughed.
I was 11 when my family moved to Tustin, where Latinos make up 40 percent of the population. Even though I no longer questioned what kids at my new school were saying since everyone spoke English, I still felt like the odd one out. Every time I mentioned a traditional Mexican dish like menudo and mulitas or Latino artists like Becky G and Karol G, nobody knew who or what I was talking about.
“Do you listen to Bad Bunny?” I asked excitedly one day during my freshman year of high school.
Paul Thornton
My classmates gave me a glaring stare as if I were speaking another language. I used to struggle with being “Mexican enough”; in Tustin, I wasn’t “American enough” for my new peers.
As I grew older, I began asking my parents why they had never taught me Spanish. At first they didn’t tell the whole truth. They would say, “Well, we had you young and didn’t know how important it would have been for you.”
That doesn’t mean Spanish was absent from our home. My parents spoke it only to each other, the effects of Proposition 63 and Tanton’s English-only movement embedded in their psyches. And it wasn’t just us: Non-English languages became self-regulated within families like mine.
I found some relief when my family moved to Anaheim, where I enrolled at a mostly Latino high school in 10th grade. There, I could listen to Bad Bunny and proudly talk with classmates about him. I was finally comfortable speaking about my complex identity, but there were still moments where I felt like an impostor.
For example, a close friend told me that since I never experienced what it’s like to live in Mexico or in a Latin American country, I wasn’t really Latina. My friend was born and raised in Colombia and spoke Spanish. “You do not even know the most popular language spoken by Latinos; how can you be Latina if you can’t relate to them?” they said.
Jane Ganahl
I asked what I should call myself instead. “Just American,” they replied.
After watching the Super Bowl, I know the truth: I am Latina. I am American. Neither of my identities cancels each other out. I have never felt more whole—or more driven to learn the histories of our Americas, to speak my parents’ language, to claim my roots as power, and to use that knowledge to stand up for my community.
My English professor was right. My voice was taken from me—by an English-only movement that made my Mexican American parents ashamed to speak Spanish, and by anti-immigrant forces that insist I could not be both Latina and American.
So I am taking my voice back. Tanton doesn’t get to watch Latinas like me ensure his movement fails, but I am thrilled my parents will see this happen.
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