There is now a Spanish language translation tool on the City of Whitewater website. It’s a new and welcome development for our city – there is a link on the City of Whitewater main page that translates English into Spanish.
It’s a welcome development.
Last year, on August 16, 2007, I called for a translation tool like this for the city’s website. I had a tool like that on my website before that time. It’s on the right side of FREE WHITEWATER’s main page. (See my post from last year, “Review: The City of Whitewater’s New Website.” For a reply from the Whitewater IT Administrator, and my response to his reply, see “City of Whitewater Website Review: Reply and Thoughts.”)
There are a few things of which one can be certain.
First, a meaningful number, although certainly not all, of our Hispanic neighbors use Spanish at least part of the time.
Second, the Hispanic population in Whitewater is large. It is surely larger than the reported census figures, or estimates since then.
Third, a translation tool on a website is more than a technical matter; it’s a matter of policy. I have no significant technical skill, but even I could put a translation tool on my website. This was never merely a matter of information technology administration – it was a matter of our city Administration itself, so to speak.
It’s an outlook, a perspective, of inclusion and acceptance to see that a translation link is a good idea. The perspective comes first, and the technical requirements come afterward. America has many clever people (like those at Google) who can design a translation program; we in Whitewater need only use the free fruits of their industry for our own community.
(Quick note — I am also trying to learn Spanish, so that I can write some of my posts in that language, but it has been slow going. No matter – I’ll keep at it.)