Do penalized sites show up in regional Google language searches?

Sites rank high on non-english versions of Google

[sahuman]

I have a small website that I put up two months ago. After a few initial hiccups, Googlebot indexed all pages. The site is decently optimized for a competitive keyphrase and I have worked on getting inbound links with the keyphrase as the anchor text.

The site is nowhere to be found in Google.com for the targetted keyphrase (PR0 till now, a few backlinks do show up). I assume that the site is on the probationary sandbox period.

I tried the "keyword1 keyword2 - dasd -asdasd -asdsad -assad...." search, my site still doesn't show up.

However on regional language google pages like Finnish, Hindi, Gaeilge, Arabic etc...my sites shows up at No.2. But no luck with most english pages.

This again, is not an isolated incident. I have two other sites (around 2 months old) that are in No.1 on regional google language searches - but nowhere in Google.com

Now, is it possible, that on these regional language google pages, the sandbox dampner does not apply? Could this be an alternative technique of knowing if you are in the sandbox?

Also, assuming in a month or two down the line, if I am out of the sandtrap, would I maintain my good position in all google pages for the targetted keyphrases?