[lg policy] Spain’s institutions call on Trump to restore Spanish to White House website

Tue Jan 24 16:06:22 UTC 2017

 Spain’s institutions call on Trump to restore Spanish to White House
website
Removal of links to other language “not a good idea,” says Foreign Minister
Alfonso Dastis
4
<http://elpais.com/elpais/2017/01/23/inenglish/1485163772_420916.html#comentarios>
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Barcelona / Madrid / Washington 24 ENE 2017 - 11:02 CET
<http://elpais.com/tag/fecha/20170124>

Spain’s diplomatic and cultural institutions have called on the Trump
administration to restore Spanish-language links
<http://elpais.com/elpais/2017/01/23/inenglish/1485163772_420916.html> on
the White House website that were removed over the weekend following the
handover of power in Washington.
[image: Spanish Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis on Monday.] Spanish Foreign
Minister Alfonso Dastis on Monday. LLUIS GENE AFP
EN ESPAÑOL

   - La Academia y los partidos piden que el español siga en la web de la
   Casa Blanca
   <http://ccaa.elpais.com/ccaa/2017/01/23/catalunya/1485186513_206564.html?id_externo_rsoc=TW_CM>

“We don’t think it is a good idea,” said Alfonso Dastis, Spain’s new
foreign minister
<http://elpais.com/elpais/2017/01/09/inenglish/1483951736_716264.html> 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 Union for the Mediterranean Regional Forum in Barcelona.

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.”

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.”

“We are continuing to build out the website...,” Spicer said. “We’ve got
the IT folks working overtime on that now.”

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 the country’s Latino
community
<http://elpais.com/elpais/2016/12/02/inenglish/1480675892_334390.html>.
PROMOTION

   - [image: Spain’s institutions call on Trump to restore Spanish to White
   House website] English in Action with Michael Robinson
   <http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2017/01/22/estados_unidos/1485105920_597756.html>

Under the Barack Obama administration, the White House website not only
provided a route to a Spanish-language version of the White House website
<https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/espanol>, 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.

There was also a Spanish-language blog that discussed topics of special
interest to the country’s Hispanic community
<http://elpais.com/elpais/2016/11/08/inenglish/1478596746_673996.html?rel=mas>,
ranging from immigration to normalizing relations with Cuba
<http://elpais.com/elpais/2016/11/29/inenglish/1480420613_760494.html> or
the economic crisis in Puerto Rico.

“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.”

During the campaign trail, Trump highlighted immigration
<http://elpais.com/elpais/2017/01/20/inenglish/1484909758_888040.html?rel=mas>
as one of the biggest problems facing the United States, promising to build a
wall along the Mexican borde
<http://elpais.com/elpais/2016/11/02/inenglish/1478097919_972174.html?rel=mas?rel=mas?rel=mas>r
and to punish US companies that continued to relocate to Mexico
<http://elpais.com/elpais/2016/11/18/inenglish/1479460729_499836.html?rel=mas?rel=mas>
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 *hombres* (men) in reference to
the “dangerous illegals” he promised to deport.

We are continuing to build the website

Sean Spicer, White House spokesman

Trump also criticized one of his rivals for the Republican nomination, Jeb
Bush, for speaking Spanish during the campaign.

“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.

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.

http://elpais.com/elpais/2017/01/23/inenglish/1485163772_420916.html

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