Author: Daniel J. Olson, Professor of Linguistics and Spanish, Purdue University

English should be the official language of the United States, says a new executive order signed by President Donald Trump on Feb. 28, 2025. The move follows the Trump administration’s termination of the Spanish-language version of the White House website and its Spanish-language account on X, formerly Twitter. Both were abruptly shut down within hours of Trump’s second presidential inauguration. Visitors to whitehouse.gov/espanol were met with “page not found” and a “GO HOME” button that sent the user to the English-language page. This button was later updated to read, “GO TO HOME PAGE.” In halting its Spanish-language communications, the White…