January 21, 2004
SOTU in Spanish, Sort Of; etc.
George W. Bush’s
State of the Union address mentioned his
new plan for
“temporary workers,” but not the bit about
amnesty for illegals. (Which is not an amnesty,
according to him. Pay no attention to
that man behind the curtain,
nothing to see here, folks, pass along.)
However, the White House staff
doesn’t want to emphasize even the temporary worker
plan. It’s not in the
“New Initiatives in President Bush’s State of the Union
Address” section, nor is it mentioned in the
“State
of the Union Excerpts” list of money quotes that
the staff wants quoted.
But it does get two paragraphs in
the actual speech. What the President
said was:
“Tonight, I also ask you
to reform our immigration laws so they reflect our
values and benefit our
economy. I propose a new
temporary worker program to match willing foreign
workers with
willing employers when no Americans can be found to
fill the job. This reform will be good for our economy
because employers will find needed workers in an honest
and orderly system. A temporary worker program will help
protect our homeland, allowing
Border Patrol and
law enforcement to focus on true threats to our
national security.
“I oppose amnesty,
because it would encourage
further illegal immigration, and unfairly reward
those who break our laws. My temporary worker program
will preserve the citizenship path for those who respect
the law, while bringing millions of hardworking men and
women out from the shadows of American life.” [Applause.]
The SOTU address is also available
in Spanish. The President didn’t actually deliver this
version, but it’s the official White House translation.
Since his inauguration, George Bush has been posting
Spanish translations of all his State of the Union
speeches, a form of pandering that even
Bill Clinton apparently didn’t engage in.
And of course, the Temporary Worker
plan is mentioned in the official Spanish
translation—with a curious omission.
The last sentences of the English and Spanish have
this non-subtle difference: In English, Bush said “My
temporary worker program will preserve the citizenship
path for those who respect the law, while bringing
millions of hardworking men and women out from the
shadows of American life.” This seems intended to
promote sympathy for the poor illegals in the
shadows.
But in Spanish, this sentence reads
”Mi
programa de trabajadores temporales preservará el camino
hacia la ciudadanía para quienes respeten la ley, y
alentará a que millones de mujeres y hombres
trabajadores dedicados y honestos emerjan de las
sombras.”
El Discurso del Presidente George W. Bush
This is not the same sentence. The translation talks
about “emerjan de las sombras” (“Out
from the shadows”) but says nothing about
“American life.”
Perhaps the White House translator doesn’t think that
the concept of American life has much of an appeal to
the Mexicans and Mexican-Americans who are the target
audience for the Spanish translation of the SOTU.
I would also ask why the translator
simply titled SOTU “El Discurso” rather
than
“Discurso sobre el Estado de la Nación” as the
2003 translator did.
Perhaps he thinks that the word
Nación, (already flawed as a translation of the word
“union” in “State of the Union “) would be
confusing, again, to the Hispanic target audience.
After all, they belong to
another nation entirely.
Reference the above piece using this permanent URL:
http://www.vdare.com/fulford/sotu.htm#sotu
That Braun Sound Bite
Mark Steyn says in a column the Chicago Sun-Times,
(read it quickly before the Sun-Times archive
system makes it go away) says that
“According to a
RoperASW poll from last year, 83 percent of
Americans support mandatory detention and forfeiture of
property for illegal immigrants, followed by
deportation.
“ Eighty-three percent. Pretty big number. So who are
the 17 percent who don't think illegal immigrants should
be seized, jailed, have their property confiscated and
deported?
“Well, they're pretty much everyone in the
two major parties, plus the entire
U.S. media.
[llIegals
the political 'untouchables' January 11, 2004]
Steyn goes
on to point out that the reason the Dems and the media
support this is because
“…everyone seems to
subscribe to the wisdom of Carol Moseley Braun's mom. As
Ambassador Braun told her audience in the ABC debate,
the NPR debate, the Rainbow/PUSH debate, the UCLA
environmental debate, the AFCSME debate, the
Congressional Hispanic Caucus debate, the Congressional
Black Caucus debate, the Service Employees International
Union debate, etc:
''My late mother used to
say it doesn't matter if you came to this country on the
Mayflower or a slave ship, through Ellis Island or
across the Rio Grande, we're all in the same boat now.''
Steyn makes a number of familiar-to-VDARE.com-readers
points about
Visa Express,
Malvo, the White House’s
own illegal alien,
terrorism and amnesty, et cetera, which are rarely
seen in the mainstream media.
But I’d like to add that Ed Gillespie,
chairman of the Republican National Committee
[contact
them], has
quoted this Braun sound bite with approval in a
press release.
And I’d like to point out the linkage between
Ambassador Braun’s point and the point made by two
Democrat strategists in the Nation piece that Sam
Francis
discussed recently:
“As the Rev. Jesse
Jackson often says, the hands that
picked the cotton, plus the hands that
picked the lettuce, are the hands that can pick the
next President—for
years to come.” [Joe Velasquez and Steve Cobble:
Blue States, Latino Voters, Jan 5, 2003]
This
just in: immigrants tend to vote Democrat ticket!
Will someone please explain this to
Karl Rove?
Then he can tell
George W. Bush.
Reference the above piece using this permanent URL:
http://www.vdare.com/fulford/sotu.htm#braun
