Historical Spanish Language Debate? Not So Much

Filed in archive Latin Issues , Latin Television on September 11, 2007

In a debate that was broadcasted live in Spanish, Hillary Clinton and other politicians promised to protect the Hispanic community in the United States, which includes 16 million voters.

A happening without precedents took place yesterday in television in the United States: for the first time, a debate between presidential pre-candidates was broadcasted live, for all the viewers in the country, in Spanish.

Hillary Clinton, was one of the candidates who emphasized a future reform of the American immigration policy.

"We shouldn't break families apart", said the Senator, regarding one of the measures she believes that should be considered once the Senate begins to legislate about immigration issues again.

Senator Christopher Dodd went further and said: "The immigration issues are an excuse. The plan to construct a border wall between Mexico and the United States is shameful".

In the same line of thought, Dennis Kucinich, democrat in representation of Ohio, added that "it is necessary to build relations between countries, not walls".

The Democrat pre-candidates know very well the importance of Latin voters in the United States. The vote of 16 million Latinos can be decisive in states like Nevada, Florida, New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona, where they constitute a wide percentage among the voters.

Unfortunately, not everything was as smooth as it sounds:

Moderators asked questions in Spanish for the television audience, which were translated into earpieces in the candidates' ears and on screens for 3,000 people in the basketball gym where the debate took place. Then the questions would be answered in English in the room, translated into Spanish for the Univision audience.

Although Univision had informed the candidates months before the debate answers would be in English, Gov. Bill Richardson wasn't happy at all:

"And I do want to say at this point that I was under the impression that in this debate Spanish was going to be permitted because I've always supported Univision all my career, but I'm disappointed today that 43 million Latinos in this country, for them not to hear one of their own speak Spanish - (applause) - is unfortunate," Richardson said. "In other words, Univision has promoted English only in this debate."

He then began speaking in Spanish, only to get cut off by the moderators. "The rules that the seven candidates
have accepted for this debate is that everyone is going to communicate in English," one responded, "and
everything would be translated into Spanish. Thank you very much."

So, Spanish wasn't really allowed in Univision's landmark Spanish-language presidential forum. How funny.

Source and More Info: The Democrats, Lost in Translation

More Info: Democrats' Spanish-language debate draws in Hispanic viewers in US