No Liberals, Delia Ramirez Did Not Say She Was Proud To Be An American First

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Congresswoman Delia Ramirez (D-IL) made the mistake of showing her true colors when she told a far-left audience in Mexico City she is first proud to be Guatemalan before being an American.

“Let me finish by saying a few words in Spanish because I’m a proud Guatemalan before I am an American,” she said.

For those unfamiliar, Ramirez was born in the U.S. after her parents crossed the southern border illegally. While her parents are U.S. citizens now, her husband is in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, meaning he arrived to the U.S. illegally as a child.

Blaze Media was the first U.S.-based outlet to post the video of her remark on social media, which resulted in the firestorm of criticism towards Ramirez. The reason for the sustained focus on Ramirez was not just Republicans who were rightfully pointing out the obvious problem of an elected representative saying such a thing, but the attention kept going because liberals and progressives claimed she said no such thing.

The following picture is a prime example of the idiotic defense:

One, using Google Translate only provides a direct translation and often, not a very good one at that. Spanish, like all languages, has depth and nuance that many times can’t be displayed by using Google Translate.

Second, this X user and many others heard “primero” and automatically thought, “Ah ha, she said ‘first’ when talking about being an American.”

What many left out was the “que” Ramirez said right after “primero.” While “que” usually means “what” it is also used for “that” and, in this case, saying “primero que” means “before than.”

What has been noteworthy about the supposed mistranslation is not only have other liberal new sites printed the correct translation, like HuffPost, but Ramirez herself has not claimed she was mistranslated. In her statement addressing her comment, she makes no attempt to say her words were twisted by non-Spanish speakers.

“Let’s call it what it is: today’s attacks are a weak attempt to silence my dissent and invalidate my patriotic criticism of the nativist, white supremacist, authoritarians in government. It is the definition of hypocrisy that members of Congress —who betray their oath each day they enable Trump— are attacking me for celebrating my Guatemalan-American roots,” Ramirez started her overwrought statement.

Again, instead of claiming she was misunderstood, Ramirez went for the “But what about white people” deflection:

“No one questions when my white colleagues identify as Irish-American, Italian-American, or Ukrainian-American to honor their ancestry. I’ve consistently expressed pride in my heritage and history - a pride also often reflected in the origin stories of my colleagues. Only those who believe America should not include the children of immigrants or be diverse would attack me - and Americans like me - for honoring my roots.”

It would be a slam dunk for Ramirez to say she was mistranslated if that were the case. But it would then bring up the issue that her Spanish isn’t that great because it created this controversy for her since many native Spanish speakers confirmed Blaze’s translation.

The other reason why I know the Blaze’s translation is correct is because I was consulted before the post was made. While my Spanish needs improvement, I was able to tell that is what she was saying. To double check, I sent the clip to a native Spanish speaker who I have used in the past to be my translator while I have reported in Mexico. My translator confirmed our post was accurate.

It is my belief that Ramirez needs to be denaturalized and deported. You dare to have the grand opportunity of being born in the U.S. and instead of being grateful, you work to undermine that very country from within as an elected member of Congress and say you’re proud to be from another country first? Yeah, you need to go back.