From the desk of the ugly American...

I mean really, this is just stupid:

School officials in Terrebonne Parish are considering a policy that would require all commencement speeches to be in English.
The proposal comes after Hue and Cindy Vo, cousins who were co-valedictorians at Ellender High School, delivered part of their commencement addresses last month in Vietnamese.
Cindy Vo, the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants, spoke about high-school memories, friends and the future. Then Ms. Vo, 18, recited a sentence in Vietnamese dedicated to her parents, as they watched. She told classmates that the line, roughly translated, was a command to always be your own person.

A sentence? Just a sentence?? Turns out Vo's parents barely speak English, and people are pissed that she had the temerity to adress them in words they might understand.

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Ta-Nehisi Coates is a national correspondent for The Atlantic, where he writes about culture, politics, and social issues. He is the author of The Beautiful Struggle, Between the World and Me, and We Were Eight Years in Power.

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