Sunday marked one of America’s most celebrated events, the Super Bowl.

Nothing says America quite like getting the family together for unhealthy snack food and football.

There’s something so purely American about the game, and this year Coca-Cola put on their red, white and blue and celebrated America in their Super Bowl commercial.

The now widely talked about ad featured Americans of all different ethnicities singing America the Beautiful in multiple languages.

Award-winning author John Green tweeted of the commercial, “Coca-Cola brings the commercial of the night: ‘America the Beautiful’ sung in Spanish, English, Arabic and other languages. Beautiful.”

But not everyone who viewed the famous cola’s ad thought the same.

Many angry customers ranted on the company’s Facebook page saying the following appalling comments.

“Really, Coke? I live in America, I would like my commercials about America in English.”
Or “One simply does NOT sing ‘America the Beautiful’ in any language but English. Get on board, or get out.”

I simply couldn’t believe the comments coming from people.

I even heard someone in one of my classes say, “They need to sing in English. Everyone in America has to speak English or they should be deported.”

You can imagine my shock.

Thankfully, some people shared Green’s enthusiasm, tweeting comments like, “As the child of immigrants who aspired to the American dream of inclusion and equality, in a nation founded by immigrants escaping class/religious/racial exclusion and discrimination back home, anyone who isn’t a Native American that has any beef with this spot needs to read their history books and realize that America’s strength was and continues to be its diversity.”

The fact of the matter is, the Super Bowl is filled with fans and players alike from different races and ethnicities. We could celebrate everyone coming together for a game instead of commenting that we all need to be exactly the same.

Kudos to Coca-Cola for capturing the essence of the Super Bowl. The message was that no matter where we come from and what our past is, we can all enjoy a game together and we are all welcome to enjoy America.

I don’t think everyone has to speak English to think America is Beautiful.

Just look at this country, from the Rocky Mountains, the Great Lakes, Statue of Liberty and even beautiful Wayne America.

We don’t have to speak English to realize the beauty among us.

So celebrate America’s diversity.

After all, America is the great melting pot of the world.

We are all different, but together we can embrace “America the Beautiful.”