First Lady Jill Biden mangled the famous Spanish phrase “Si se puede” in a history-making speech to Latino farmworkers in California.
“See, say pad-way,” Jill Biden told the group of union leaders and farm workers gathered in Delano, Calif. on Wednesday, badly mispronouncing the official slogan of the United Farm Workers.
The phrase, in English, means “Yes, we can.”
Biden correctly pronounced the phrase the first two times she used it while honoring labor activist Cesar Chavez at The Forty Acres, a center that is revered by farmworkers as the birthplace of the union.
“Cesar Chavez understood that no matter the obstacles, when people come together united in a cause, anything is possible. Yes we can. Si se puede!” she said.
Biden was wrapping up her speech when she apparently got a bit tongue-tied.
“So say it with me,” she said, before awkwardly offering the botched phrase. “The future is ours.”
Despite the gaffe, Biden won cheers as she walked away from the microphone and left the stage accompanied by California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
But the bad Spanglish won instant ridicule on Twitter, including by @ElBloombito, the user who regularly mocks former Mayor Michael Bloomberg for his well-documented trouble communicating in Spanish.
“Firsto Ladyo Bideño. Si se pad thai,” the faux Bloomberg tweeted Thursday.
Biden is the first First Lady to attend the annual event in California’s Central Valley where the late Chavez rose from obscurity to form the influential United Farm Workers.
The Forty Acres site marks the place where Chavez launched a protest fast during his organizing effort.
Biden started using online programs to learn some rudimentary Spanish during her husband’s presidential campaign and put the skills to to work at a series of events designed to get feedback from Latino voters.
