When you run an all-Spanish notice, without translation, in the Post Register, asking eastern Idaho Mexican-Americans to call you, you hear from more Idaho Anglos than Idaho Hispanics.
The ad ran Thursday on Page One: “…El Post Register ha contratado a un reportero en el estado de Tlaxcala para cubrir la legada de los paisanos a Mexico…”
It explained, in Spanish, that the Post Register has hired a reporter in Tlaxcala to write about the annual Christmas trip some Idaho families make to Mexico. That was too much Spanish for some readers, but not always for anti-immigrant reasons.
This editor is too Spanish?
Larry from Rigby was still cussing when I returned the message he left. “This is the United States of America,” he hollered, adding that he would cancel his 70-year subscription if we continued to use Spanish in the paper.
A very stern woman who did not give her name, caught me late in the day yesterday and asserted that if governments in the U.S. have to print ballots and other information in two languages, then the newspaper should translate, too. She said it was humiliating to not be able to read what was in the paper.
Another caller was a little less hot under the collar: “I can’t read that mumbo-jumbo, excuse me, Mexican, uh-Spanish,” said a younger woman named Delores. But she wasn’t angry and when she heard what the story was, seemed interested.
So far, no eastern Idahoan has called to actually participate in the story.
But I still have high hopes. We’ve arranged with our occasional correspondent Alexis Charbonnier in central Mexico to write about the annual influx of Idaho license plates into Mexico as temporary workers and Mexican-American citizens alike head south for Christmas with family members in Mexico.
Charbonnier has already found neighbors of his down in Mexico with family in Rexburg, Driggs, Felt and Ashton, but we wanted to make sure to connect with as many as possible on this end of the story, so we’ll keep running our little notice.
A short translation in English is in order, though. Two friendly callers wanted to check to see if they had translated correctly, so not everyone loses their temper when they encounter a foreign language.
The number of complaints wasn’t large, but I was surprised by the vehemence of those who called in. Would they be as angry if we were a Northeast Kingdom newspaper in Vermont, running an ad in French for homeward-bound Quebecois?
Most of the baseball box scores are a mystery to me, as are some of the fashion articles and most of the reports on commodity prices. They may as well be in Urdu.
But Spanish, being a romance language, is close enough to English that I thought folks could puzzle it out. I’d love to hear from other readers about what their reaction is…or was. Here’s the text of the ad.
Quieres estar en el periódico?
El diario Post Register planea publicar un artículo sobre las familias del ste de Idaho que se regresan por carretera a México para pasar la Navidad con sus familiares. Llama a Dean Miller al 542-6766 en Idaho Falls (o mándale un correo a dmiller@postregister.com) si quieres que tu y tus familiares sean incluidos en la nota. El Post Register ha contratado a un reportero en el estado de Tlaxcala para cubrir la llegada de los paisanos a México.
wow.
on one hand, i am not surprised at the lack of open-mindedness at a spanish-language post published anywhere in idaho. i was following the comment threads at idahostatesman.com on the reports about ICE raids in Nampa a few weeks ago. the level of anger and hate directed at those considered “other” is troubling for our society as a whole, let alone for our small and often-times isolated state.
i guess one day people with translation questions will know to go first to google translator. your ad, if they were to even the slightest bit curious to understand what it said, actually translates pretty well. give or take some conjugation, it’s easy to understand what you were asking, which speaks well to the clarity of your writing.