In Bilingual District, Claim of ‘L anguage Barriers’ Meets Skepticism

[Harold Schiffman]

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September 11, 2008
Trouble With Spanish? Constituents Weigh In

By FERNANDA SANTOS

With two clicks of a mouse, the content on Representative Charles B.
Rangel's Web site goes from English to Spanish. For example, on the
top right-hand side of the screen, the "Rangel tax assistance page"
turns into "La página de la ayuda del impuesto de Rangel." The
translation is just one of the services that Mr. Rangel offers to his
Hispanic constituency in New York's 15th Congressional District, in
which Spanish is the primary language in nearly half the households,
according to the 2000 census, and is invariably heard in barbershops,
bodegas and political clubs. The Web site also allows visitors to sign
up to receive e-mail newsletters in Spanish and read Spanish versions
of Mr. Rangel's opinion pieces.

So it came as a surprise to many voters that Mr. Rangel told reporters
on Wednesday that he did not pay federal taxes on rental income he
earned from his villa in the Dominican Republic, because of what he
called "cultural and language barriers" that he said he encountered
when he sought detailed financial statements from the resort's
managers. "Every time I thought I was getting somewhere, they'd start
speaking Spanish," Mr. Rangel said. Leilani Flores, a restaurant
manager who lives in East Harlem, a Puerto Rican redoubt in the heart
of Mr. Rangel's district, said she saw him interacting with
Spanish-speaking voters some years ago, looking as if he understood
what they were saying and throwing back a few phrases in Spanish as
well.

Born in New York to Puerto Rican parents, Ms. Flores, 49, conceded
that her Spanish was functional, but not flawless, and added: "Charlie
Rangel's Spanish is as good as mine." Exactly how good Mr. Rangel's
Spanish is proved hard to ascertain, though. Alberto Vourvoulias,
executive editor of the Spanish-language daily El Diario La Prensa,
said in an interview that the congressman had met with the newspaper's
editorial board many times and that the conversation had always been
in English. But, Mr. Vourvoulias said, "the area he represents has a
very high percentage of Hispanic voters, and even if he doesn't speak
Spanish, I've never seen him to feel uncomfortable with Hispanic
cultures."

A spokesman for Mr. Rangel referred questions about his Spanish to his
lawyer, Lanny Davis, who said last night, "I do not know." Mr. Rangel
himself is part Hispanic; his father, Ralph Rangel Sr., was born in
Ponce, Puerto Rico, though he left the family when Mr. Rangel was 6.
Mr. Rangel lives in rent-regulated apartments in a building whose
residents are mostly black, but there are at least a few Hispanic
names listed there, like Sanchez and Rivera. In his district office on
West 125th Street, several of the workers are Hispanic, including the
receptionist and his policy analyst — both of whom speak Spanish.
Hispanics are, in fact, the largest ethnic group in the 15th
Congressional District, making up 46 percent of the population,
according to Mr. Rangel's Web site. (Non-Hispanic blacks make up 37
percent of the district's residents.)

In addition to East Harlem, Mr. Rangel's district includes Washington
Heights, which is home to the city's largest Dominican community, and
a small part of the Bronx, where there are Hispanic residents of
various nationalities. The Web site itself describes the area as "the
perfect definition of the American melting pot." Mr. Rangel was first
elected to Congress in 1970 and since 2007 has been the chairman of
the House Ways and Means Committee, which writes federal tax laws.  He
bought the house in the Dominican Republic in 1988 and failed to
report $75,000 in rental income over the years, therefore not paying
several thousand dollars in federal taxes.

At El Nuevo Caridad Restaurant on Broadway near 172nd Street in
Washington Heights, Nelly Baez, a cashier who came to New York from
the Dominican Republic in 1988, said that in the end, it did not
matter whether or not Mr. Rangel speaks Spanish. "He didn't have a
lawyer?" she asked.

"If he's in government," Ms. Baez said, "he should know."

In East Harlem, inside the El Barrio Democratic Club on Lexington
Avenue, near 104th Street, Luis de Jesus, 75, a retired maintenance
worker, sounded a note of incredulity when he heard Mr. Rangel's
explanation, complaining to no one in particular: "That man represents
himself. That's it."

Nearby, at Public School 72, Mildred Sanchez, 43, wondered how Mr.
Rangel could not find anyone to translate whatever he did not
understand.

"It's ridiculous," she grumbled as she waited for her grandson to be
dismissed from class.

"How are you going to tell me that a guy who has a lot of people
working for him who speak both Spanish and English couldn't understand
what he had to do?"

Mathew R. Warren and Karen Zraick contributed reporting.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/nyregion/11spanish.html
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