SAPs

The United States has accommodated its Spanish-speaking population with the SAP (Secondary Audio Program) English-to-Spanish translation service (see: Spanish Translation Blog) which offers television viewers the opportunity to hear many programs in their native Spanish language. Now that over 55 million American don’t speak English at home … by far the majority being Spanish (see: International.com Blog) ... this is both a positive and a negative for the assimilation process that has made the United States such a great country. It is a positive in that many Hispanics can keep up with the current U.S. culture.  However, it is a negative in that there is now far less peer pressure for them to learn English.

English was not my wife’s first language, it was Polish. But, after she started kindergarten, she learned to communicate effectively in English within two short months. So much for our silly liberal mandates to teach young non-English speaking students in their native language for endless years.

Now it seems that even political debates are being held entirely in Spanish … see: Breitbart Story. This brings up an obvious question … if we offer an English-to-Spanish TV translation service, why cannot we mandate the reverse … a Spanish-to-English translation service? All too often I have watched C-SPAN coverage of Hispanic rallies in which it was obvious that anti-American rabble rousers were featured. I would have loved to know exactly what they were saying … which I believe is my right. I don’t recall ever seeing much translation commentary from bi-lingual reporters. Why is this so?

We really are a bunch of saps …