[lg policy] US State Department sticks with Spanish-language briefings

[Harold Schiffman]

State Department sticks with Spanish-language briefings
Posted By Uri Friedman Wednesday, May 30, 2012 - 5:55 PM Share

When Mike Hammer, the assistant secretary of state for public affairs,
conducted the State Department's first ever press briefing in Spanish
in March, the last question he fielded was "Cuándo va a ser la
próxima?" -- when will the next one be?

This Friday, it turns out. The State Department announced this
afternoon that Hammer, who grew up in Latin America, will host another
Spanish-language briefing on U.S. foreign policy issues on June 1. As
he did last time, Hammer will conduct a "Twitter Briefing" in Spanish
prior to the press conference (how 21st century!).

Last time around, reporters from Spanish-language news outlets asked
Hammer about everything from Iran's ties with Venezuela to Cuba's
exclusion from the Summit of the Americas to the possibility that
Osama bin Laden's corpse was not dumped at sea (the Twitter Briefing
opened jarringly, with the question, "How can you be a beacon of
democracy while at the same time you plan, execute, and support coup
d'états?"). Check out Hammer's Spanish -- it's pretty good.

The initiative is part of a larger effort by the U.S. government to
embrace the Spanish language, whether through its Spanish-language
portal GobiernoUSA.gov or the State Department's @USAenEspanol Twitter
feed (heck, the U.S. Bureau of Education commissioned a Spanish
version of the Star-Spangled Banner as early as 1919).

But I wonder whether these State Department briefings will revive the
debate about the role of the Spanish language in the United States --
particularly in an election year when Mitt Romney is walking a fine
line between arguing that English should be the country's official
language and courting the critical Latino vote, which is largely in
President Obama's camp, with ads in Spanish. It doesn't take much,
after all, to spark controversy on this issue; last week, a pizza
chain's promise to give away pepperoni pies to customers who ordered
in Spanish did the trick.

For those interested  in learning more about Hammer's upcoming
briefing, you can find the press release here. Oh, and the
announcement is also available en español.

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/05/30/state_department_sticks_with_spanish_language_briefings

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