Coca Cola's Commercial Will Give You *Feelings*

Like most people (I think), I watch the Super Bowl mostly for the commercials. This year, the first one to make me cry was a Coca Cola ad that featured "America the Beautiful" being sung in several different languages. But wait, I feel like I've seen this one before? Coca Cola's "America the Beautiful" commercial at Super Bowl 51 has definitely been aired before. But I'm so not complaining.

The commercial actually first aired at the Super Bowl back in 2014, and was immediately greeted by cries from a certain demographic of America complaining that in America, the people speak English. This, by the way, is demonstrably untrue. Let's take this moment to remember that there is no official language of the United States of America, despite what some people may choose to believe. Despite the surprising amount of backlash to the ad, which is meant to promote acceptance and love, Coca-Cola has continued to air it at the Super Bowl. According to Ad Age, Coca Cola's 2014 ad earned the number 12 spot of the 20 best Super Bowl ads ever aired. And in times like these, when the president is signing executive orders to ban entry to the United States of people from Muslim countries, the country need ads that remind people of the country's diversity and need for inclusivity more than ever.

But while the ad got a lot of negative backlash, it has also earned a lot of praise over the years. In almost equal measure, people responded positively to the ad and the brand's message, which was one of togetherness and unity. These are probably the same people who were inspired by Hilary Clinton's campaign message of Stronger Together.

America has always been a nation of immigrants, and almost everyone in this country has ancestors or relatives in varying degrees who come from a different country, and therefore speak a different language. Unfortunately, America also have an unofficial national history of xenophobia, in which people somehow believe that the number of years one's family has been in America is a sort of legitimizing barometer of American-ness.

No matter how many people complain that Coke is trying to shove a "liberal agenda" down people's throats, the fact that America is a diverse nation of people from many cultures that speaks many languages is just that — a fact. Like it or not, people in America don't just speak one language. They speak several. And that is a damn beautiful thing.