Santorum: Ich bin ein Puerto Rican-er ("I never said only English should be spoken here. Never...") [View all]

[Amerigo Vespucci]

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Rick Santorum came to Puerto Rico and promptly waded into the emotional debate over the role English should play in the island's future, sparking a furor that led the former Pennsylvania senator to insist his remarks were misreported.

Santorum was forced to repeatedly clarify remarks he made Wednesday, when he said English would have to be the "main language" for Puerto Rico to become a state.

"I never said only English should be spoken here. Never did I even intimate that," Santorum told local reporters gathered in El Capitolio, the island's Capitol building. "What I said was that English had to be spoken as well as other – obviously Spanish is going to be spoken, this would be a bilingual country."

"As the son of an Italian immigrant myself, I continue to believe that English is the language of opportunity in America, under statehood or the current status," Santorum said in the statement. "What I want is for every child in Puerto Rico to speak English fluently, in addition to Spanish of course."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/post/santorum-says-puerto-rico-should-adopt-english-if-it-hopes-to-be-state/2012/03/15/gIQAAeBKFS_blog.html