Necesitamos una Buena Comunicación*

      It's not my habit to post so soon in succession, but one of the headlines I read this morning over breakfast said that the White House website is no longer available in Spanish.  It was a small article, but this is a very, very big deal.
      It's a big deal for two clear reasons.  Firstly, the White House is one of the two most critical nerve centers of American government.  Some data suggests that as few as one out of five Americans know the name of their state senators, but I think it's safe to say that the majority of our citizens know who is president--especially at this point in history.  Individuals looking for information about the leader of the free world might naturally start with the web site belonging to the most recognizable real estate in the country.  And now that information is not accessible to a significant percentage of the population.
      Then there's the symbolism.  Sure, the White House website is under construction while new information replaces the old during a change in administration, but you don't see the entire English site going down, or even significant portions.  Information about Melania Trump's modeling career & jewelry business was made available pretty damn fast.  So there's no doubt that this disappearance is deliberate.  It's no different than the popular kid handing out birthday invitations to everyone in their class except for those two or three they don't like: it's hard to miss that kind of snub.  And considering the exclusionary, uninformed, racist rhetoric Trump has spouted regarding Latinos, it would seem this is a malicious snub.  An entire group of people - who already struggle because of language issues - are even more shut out.

      I've already said that one the ways I hope to improve myself and be more of an activist is by learning Spanish.  When an entire language - and the people who speak it - are so forcefully marginalized, that becomes even more important.  At the Womxn's March, there were a lot of signs that said: BUILD BRIDGES, NOT WALLS!  I can't think of a more powerful bridge than that of communication.  I don't particularly like learning languages; it's a struggle for me, & it takes time I'd rather spend doing other things.  And that may be the biggest indicator of my White Privilege I can think of.


So what can we do?

      Before publishing this post I went to the White House website & left a message for the president, asking him specifically to restore the Spanish Translation of the website.  There were a lot of people in those marches on Saturday.  What if we got even half of them to flood the website with that particular request?
Here's the link: https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact


*This post's title is brought to you by Google Translate.