Rep. Adelita Grijalva code-switches in first remarks after sworn in [View all]

The granddaughter of a bracero, who waited 50 days to take her seat in Congress, Rep. Adelita Grijalva stepped to the podium on the House floor and told her colleagues, "Our democracy works when everyone has a voice."

“Este momento es histórico para nuestra comunidad,” Grijalva said in Spanish, offering no translation to her hundreds of colleagues on the House floor. “Es un honor ser la primera latina en representar a Arizona en el congreso.” (“This is a historic moment for our community,” she said. “It is an honor to be the first Latina to represent Arizona in Congress.)

During her roughly five-minute speech, Grijalva seamlessly switched between English and Spanish, a commonality for many who grew up along the U.S.-Mexico border, when speaking to her colleagues while also directing some of her remarks to the Latino community.

Code-switching is the practice of selectively switching between languages during a conversation, a phenomenon that's deeply familiar to bilingual and multilingual people in the U.S.

Grijalva, who won a special election to replace Rep. Raúl Grijalva, her late father, is the first Latina – and “first Chicana,” as she said — to represent the state of Arizona in Congress. Though she is the first, she said she won’t be the last.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/11/12/rep-adelita-grijalva-code-switches-in-first-remarks-after-sworn-in/87238810007/

And this is a bad thing exactly HOW? BTW, to the USA Today reporter, there are a number of other Latino Congress members, so STFU. I'm sure they understood her just fine and so did Li'l Marco an a couple of senators.