To people insulted by our president, please accept this apology

Today, for the first time in my life, I am embarrassed to be an American.

During my last year teaching overseas, the 2016 presidential campaign had already begun, and I promised my students that then-Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump would not be elected. In fact, I laughed when they expressed concern that it might happen.

As I was the American adult in the room, they had the right to believe me, and I was completely wrong.

If I were there now, I would be scrambling to put together a quick review of American government: The president represents only one of three branches of our government, in which our founders embedded a system of checks and balances. In 1947, the 22nd Amendment was passed, prohibiting any elected president from serving for more than eight years. Translation: there is only so much harm any one president can do.

I have always been so proud to be an American. My father was a U.S. Navy veteran, and my son, now a retired U.S. Air Force colonel, volunteered for assignments in Afghanistan. My daughter-in-law, a former Air Force captain, worked for days around the clock to get our guys ready to deploy. The torch was passed to my daughter, now a Navy social worker. I am so proud to have had the privilege of doing my tiny part by teaching kids on military bases.

Today, for the first time in my life, I am embarrassed to be an American.

All I want to do is to apologize, in all the languages of all the people our president insulted.

I do not speak any of those languages. But Haitian Creole is not that different from French, which I do speak, so the meaning is very clear: Mwen vreman dezole .( Je suis vraiment désolé.) And 5 million people in a dozen African countries speak Swahili, a language that most Americans have at least heard of: Nasikita sana. And most of us speak at least a bit of Spanish: Lo siento mucho.

On behalf of all of us who promise to work hard to ensure the limits of the 22nd Amendment will not be met, please accept our apology.

ANGELA GRANT,