Julián Castro, the former head of Housing and Urban Development, explained he does not speak Spanish fluently because his parents felt internalized oppression to make sure he could speak English.

“People, I think, internalized this oppression about it, and basically wanted their kids to first be able to speak English,” Castro said Sunday in an interview aired on MSNBC. “And I think that in my family, like a lot of other families, that the residue of that, the impact of that is that there are many folks whose Spanish is not that great.”