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<h1 class="gmail-articulo-titulo" id="gmail-articulo-titulo">Spain’s institutions call on Trump to restore Spanish to White House website</h1>
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<h2 class="gmail-articulo-subtitulo">Removal of links to other language “not a good idea,” says Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis</h2>
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<p>Spain’s diplomatic and cultural institutions have called on the Trump administration to <a href="http://elpais.com/elpais/2017/01/23/inenglish/1485163772_420916.html">restore Spanish-language links</a> on the White House website that were removed over the weekend following the handover of power in Washington.</p>
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<figcaption class="gmail-foto-pie">Spanish Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis on Monday. <span class="gmail-foto-firma"><span class="gmail-foto-autor">LLUIS GENE</span> <span class="gmail-foto-agencia">AFP</span></span></figcaption>
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<p>“We don’t think it is a good idea,” said <a href="http://elpais.com/elpais/2017/01/09/inenglish/1483951736_716264.html">Alfonso Dastis, Spain’s new foreign minister</a>
on Monday. “Managing the website is an internal matter for the White
House, but we regret the removal of the Spanish version,” he said at the
opening of the latest <span class="gmail-st">Union for the Mediterranean Regional Forum</span> in Barcelona.</p>
<p>Darío Villanueva, the head of the Spanish Royal Academy, the body
that oversees the use of the Spanish language in Spain, described the
move as “a major setback,” while Víctor de la Concha, the director of
the Instituto Cervantes, which promotes Spanish culture and language
teaching around the world, called it a “serious gesture,” adding: “Trump
is president of all Americans and 18% of the population speaks Spanish
and 95% of them consider that it is important for them, their children
and their nephews to continue speaking Spanish.”</p>
<p>Responding to the international outcry and media coverage, Sean
Spicer, the White House’s new spokesman, said during his first daily
press briefing on Monday that no final decision had been made on a
Spanish-language communication policy and that “it would take a little
longer” to complete the website “piece by piece.”</p>
<p>“We are continuing to build out the website...,” Spicer said. “We’ve got the IT folks working overtime on that now.”</p>
<p>After announcing a Cabinet with no Latinos in it, the first time this
has happened in three decades, the new team at the White House has
closed the government’s Spanish-language accounts on social networks.
Furthermore, nobody has yet been announced to replace the Obama
administration’s spokesperson for policies or topics relating to <a href="http://elpais.com/elpais/2016/12/02/inenglish/1480675892_334390.html">the country’s Latino community</a>.</p>
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<p>Under the Barack Obama administration, the White House website not only provided <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/espanol">a route to a Spanish-language version of the White House website</a>,
but also to topics of interest to the Hispanic community, such as
Obama’s executive decisions to temporarily regularize the situation of
hundreds of thousands of undocumented minors through the Differed Action
for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy.</p>
<p>There was also a Spanish-language blog that discussed topics of special interest to <a href="http://elpais.com/elpais/2016/11/08/inenglish/1478596746_673996.html?rel=mas">the country’s Hispanic community</a>, ranging from immigration to <a href="http://elpais.com/elpais/2016/11/29/inenglish/1480420613_760494.html">normalizing relations with Cuba</a> or the economic crisis in Puerto Rico.</p>
<p>“In a country where there are 52 million people who speak Spanish it
is not a good idea to give up a communication tool,” said Dastis. “We
are in favor of dialogue and the more means there are for doing this,
the better,” he added. Dastis has been very careful since Donald Trump
was elected to avoid making any judgments about the new US president,
calling for him to be “given an opportunity.”</p>
<p>During the campaign trail, Trump highlighted <a href="http://elpais.com/elpais/2017/01/20/inenglish/1484909758_888040.html?rel=mas">immigration</a> as one of the biggest problems facing the United States, promising to build <a href="http://elpais.com/elpais/2016/11/02/inenglish/1478097919_972174.html?rel=mas?rel=mas?rel=mas">a wall along the Mexican borde</a>r and to punish US companies that continued to r<a href="http://elpais.com/elpais/2016/11/18/inenglish/1479460729_499836.html?rel=mas?rel=mas">elocate to Mexico</a>
with high import tariffs. The only time Trump used a Spanish word while
on the stump was during the last presidential debate with his
Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, when he talked about bad <em>hombres</em> (men) in reference to the “dangerous illegals” he promised to deport.</p>
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<p>We are continuing to build the website</p>
<p class="gmail-autor_cita">Sean Spicer, White House spokesman</p>
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<p>Trump also criticized one of his rivals for the Republican nomination, Jeb Bush, for speaking Spanish during the campaign.</p>
<p>“We have a country where, if you want to assimilate, you have to
speak English… I am not the first to say this…This is a country where we
speak English, not Spanish,” he said during a debate with other
Republican hopefuls in September 2015.</p>
<p>Spain’s opposition Socialists have pressured the Popular Party
government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to respond to the White
House’s move, suggesting a diplomatic initiative targeting Washington by
Spanish-speaking countries.</p><p><a href="http://elpais.com/elpais/2017/01/23/inenglish/1485163772_420916.html">http://elpais.com/elpais/2017/01/23/inenglish/1485163772_420916.html</a><br></p><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">**************************************<br>N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its members<br>and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal, and to write directly to the original sender of any offensive message. A copy of this may be forwarded to this list as well. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)<br><br>For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to <a href="https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/" target="_blank">https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/</a><br>listinfo/lgpolicy-list<br>*******************************************</div>
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