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Bloomberg’s Hurricane Irene Warning Typifies Spanish Outreach

During Hurricane Irene, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg tried to give a speech in Spanish to alert Hispanic residents about the dangers of the hurricane. However, an honest effort to reach Spanish speakers turned into a typical misunderstanding of Spanish and led Bloomberg to be criticized around the Web. The goodwill attempt was considered “disastrous” because of his bad accent which was later parodied by a Twitter user who already has amassed more than 15,000 followers.