Calling telenovelas “soap operas” is a bit dismissive of them. The best are on par with the top-quality productions of HBO/Netflix/BBC, at least from a writing/acting standpoint. They don't always have the production budget of those others, but there's a reason why they get global distribution into a lot of non-Hispanophone markets.

Anecdata: Among my wife's family, I think everyone speaks/understands English and most have at least one additional language if not more (one of her cousins is fluent in and speaks accentless English, Spanish, French and Arabic and has a working ability in German as well). English speakers, in contrast, tend to be stubbornly monolingual.