The Atlantic Explains How Attacks On Spanish Language Isolate A Key Demographic

The Atlantic highlighted how the discriminatory attacks on the use of Spanish language in presidential campaigns -- which are prevalent in conservative media -- overlook the important role the growing Latino community has in elections.  

Echoing Donald Trump, conservative media have repeatedly attacked the use of Spanish language by candidates on the campaign trail. And such discrimination isn't limited to the political arena -- an Arizona news anchor, Vanessa Ruiz was forced to defend her pronunciation of Spanish words due to viewer criticism.

As the number of Hispanics in the American electorate continues to grow, courting this demographic has become a political necessity for presidential hopefuls, and the September 16 CNN Republican presidential debate provided an important lens through which Latino voters view Republican presidential candidates. Donald Trump used the opportunity to criticize the use of Spanish language in campaigns, asserting “this is a country where we speak English, not Spanish.” 

2016 Distilled, The Atlantic's hub forc ampaign coverage, released a September 17 video in which Assistant Editor Priscilla Alvarez explains how Donald Trump's rhetoric gives the appearance that he “doesn't like languages other than English,” and thus fails to understand the electoral importance of this growing community -- “Republicans need the Hispanic vote to have a chance at the White House”:

What Donald Trump fails to understand is that Spanish should be accepted on the campaign trail. Lo que le falta entender a Donald Trump es que el español debería ser aceptado en la campaña electoral.

Posted by 2016 Distilled on Thursday, September 17, 2015

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ: The latest debate that aired on CNN again touched on whether candidates should speak Spanish on the campaign trail. Can they do so or not?

Jeb Bush has done it plenty of times, speaking Spanish with the people and journalists.

The former Florida governor is married to a Mexican American woman, so he has an advantage over other candidates not only in knowing the language, but also culturally.

He's not the only one who demonstrated the importance of speaking Spanish. For example, Marco Rubio's family came from Cuba.

During the debate, he admitted he prefers to speak Spanish instead of having a translator on Univision.

Donald Trump doesn't like languages other than English. Several times, he's said that English should be the language spoken in the United States. Perhaps, he should understand that the Hispanic community is growing and the country celebrates other languages.

English or not, we know that the Republicans need the Hispanic vote to have a chance at the White House.

In 2012, Obama won the majority of the Hispanic support, but Mitt Romney took much less.