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A hotel owner in Taos, Texas recently asked that all his Hispanic employees “shorten” their names to something a little more “American.” According to an article posted by Asylum, the new boss mandated the following upon his takeover:

1. No speaking Spanish in front of the boss.
2. Everyone’s fired and has to re-apply for their jobs.
3. It’s “strongly suggested” that employees shorten their long, silly Spanish names. (”Who has the time to say ‘Marcos?’ Why not Mark or Bill?” That’s actually a real example.)

Roberto Ruiz of the San Antonio Public Policy Examiner sees this as a strong case against America’s declaration as of late that we live in a “post-racial” society.  He also points out that Hispanics make up the majority population in Taos.

It usually comes as a surprise to people when I mention that our republic does not have an “official language.” Wisely, this nation’s founders decided not to declare an official language, their reasons included “a belief in tolerance for linguistic diversity within the population, the economic and social value of foreign language knowledge and citizenry, and a desire not to restrict the linguistic and cultural freedom of those living in the new country.”

In a previous blog post, “What’s in a Hispanic name,” we’ve looked at the Hispanic naming system and how it is often confused in the United States, resulting in a loss of culture and identity for many Hispanic Americans (click here to go to the post).

Read Ruiz’s full column here.

Hispanic population growth leapt 15% from 2007-2008 in Luzerne County, PA, topping the nation with this milestone. Hispanics now make up about one-third of the small county’s population.

The county is opening its arms to the new diversity, whose growth could be caused by an exodus from more expensive urban areas like New York and New Jersey. In the city, jobs are harder to come by, and so is affordable housing. Linda Trompetter, director of the Luzerne County Diversity Commission and the Diversity Institute at Misericordia University, says she has noticed the changing face of the community and it’s new needs.

“We need a lot more education and working together to deal with the issues that arise because of it,” such as the need for increased English as a Second Language instruction in schools, healthcare services and issues of tolerance.

Trompetter is receiving more and more requests for cultural competency training from local businesses, hospitals and school districts. The trainings teach people how to “interact effectively with any group of people whose culture is different than our own,” and how to respect those differences.

To read more about this issue from the Hazleton Times, click here.

Advertising Age published a great article about the Spanish language in the U.S.—what it has meant in the past, and where it stands today.

Spanish is discussed in four sections: language as  differentiator, language as unifier, language as culture, language as currency. To start, Spanish has played an important role in American culture for many generations, although in the past, there was a strongly repressive attitude against its use. As a result, many children born to Spanish native speakers in the U.S. never learned their parents’ language.

This has resulted in a retro-acculturation trend, wherein the second generation seeks to reclaim their lost linguistic and cultural heritage. And that, in turn, has created birth of a new marketing industry to Hispanics living in the U.S.

Hispanic marketers have a lot to consider. For one, Spanish speakers are regionally very diverse, which can dramatically affect the target audience.

For years one of the biggest challenges for marketers targeting the Hispanic market has been about achieving a delicate balance between relevance and commonality. If we use Puerto Rican slang, will we offend the Domincans, Cubans and Mexicans in the same market? If we are too “current” and popular will we seem to “Naco” for the older and higher income consumers? Famous cases of language slip-ups and lack of sensitivity haunt the halls of most all Hispanic agencies that have been around any significant period of time.

Read more about the language and cultural implications of Hispanic marketing in the U.S. in the full article.

New Bedford, MA believes that their community will succeed when immigrants have more opportunities in the workplace. Local business and civic leaders have launched an initiative called English Works Campaign that helps to eliminate the long waiting lists for English classes.

Anthony R. Sapienza, president of Abboud, a New Bedford manufacturer of men’s clothing, believes proficiency in English helps businesses and opens up more job opportunities to the workers.

Business leaders like Sapienza have seen the effects of workers learning English on the job. Workers can better understand their duties and communicate with management, creating a more productive workforce and local economy.

Sapienza says English skills increase efficiency, reduce errors, and improve employee retention. Immigrants can also feel more integrated into their new communities, and can better help their children who are growing up in English-speaking schools.

Manufacturing emphasizes these days an approach known as “lean manufacturing,” which involves teamwork. This type of collaboration is not possible with “15 different people speaking 15 different languages,” Sapienza said.

Beyond that, there are jobs requiring customer service or computer skills, where it helps to speak English, he said.

Learn more about what New Bedford is doing to improve its community and workplaces here.

An online article on eCommerce discusses the importance of translating your website. It’s not a simple as you might think—and definitely not as easy as sticking your text into a machine translator and hoping for the best.

First, everyone needs to understand the value of hiring a human vs. machine translator. A human translator will pick up the idioms and intricacies of the target language in a way that a machine could never do. To use one example of an idiomatic translation, “never judge a book by its cover” would be most appropriately translated to French as “l’habit na fait pas le moine” (”the clothes don’t make the monk”).

The goal, especially in the advertisement world where words sell, is a natural-sounding and never literal translation.

The eCommerce article recommends rewriting and reducing content before having it professionally translated, not only to reduce costs but to reduce idioms as well.

Let’s take a look at a descriptive example:

Like they say, you can’t judge a book by its cover. This humble looking pocket knife has every feature short of the kitchen sink, including two cutting blades, a corkscrew, a can opener, and a global positioning system.

This product description (which I realize is not necessarily an example of a well-written paragraph) includes an idiom, a metaphor, and other figures of speech that would be hard to translate. Now, we rewrite it:

This folding knife has two cutting blades, a corkscrew, a can opener, and a global positioning system.

Having removed the idiom, the metaphor, and the term “pocket” which may not make sense in other languages, we have a matter-of-fact sentence that is ready to translate.

The article’s additional pieces of advice include: hire a professional translator, check the translation for errors (which a professional translation services should provide), hire a professional writer, and consider translation memory (also something a translation service should provide).

Note: the article cites some rather pricey costs for professional translation services. You’ll probably find better prices out there among the more competitive companies.

My best advice: discuss your options and goals with the translation service you choose from the very beginning. You can figure out how to cut corners from the start without having unknown costs spring up down the line, especially if you foresee lots of changes to your eCommerce website in the future.

Read the full article and recommendations here.

We can help! Contact WLS for a free quote for website translation.

Anyone who has ever tried to learn a second language knows that it’s not easy to express yourself exactly as you’d like, because some words and expressions simply don’t transfer from one language to another. High school teacher Jenny Sonya Patino sees this struggle in her bilingual students all the time, what she calls their lack of “voice.”

Patino’s own mother grew up in a generation that strongly discouraged speaking Spanish in school. Because of her mother’s negative experience, Patino was raised speaking English only.

She remembers being hit for using Spanish when she didn’t know the English words to express herself. Her suffering was common for students like her back then.

It seems that schools have been set up to shame children out of Spanish as a way to accelerate English learning. This is quite obvious in recent generations. Many who were punished for speaking Spanish have chosen to raise their children to speak only English because of the pain they went through.

How then, Patino asks, can we now encourage bilingual students to find their “voice” in school today? Where does Spanish fit in an all-English classroom? How can schools help develop students’ “voice” in both languages?

Imagine the possibilities for our bicultural children if they were able to weave a precise selection of words from Spanish into their writing. They would have much more to offer because their means of expression would increase.

Patino offers the idea of incorporation of Spanish into English because, like Pat Mora’s famous poem “La Migra” written primarily in English with some important Spanish speckled throughout, it would give children the opportunity to include their unique bicultural experience into their expression.

Read Patino’s full column in the El Paso Times here.

Latino players recruited by U.S. sports teams continue to face a language barrier in an area where communication is make or break.

For example, Reds player Johnny Cueto, born in the Dominican Republic, won’t give post-game interviews in English because he’s still “practicing.” For now, he speaks through interpreters, though teammate Arthur Rhodes says he manages to communicate just fine to women when he goes out.

The language barrier presented a problem back in the 1950s and 60s when Latinos were recruited in big numbers to American baseball teams. An article on Cincinnati.com recreates an unfortunate and humorous tale which might explain why the early expansion Mets were notoriously bad.

On short flyballs to center or left-center field, outfielder Richie Ashburn and Venezuelan shortstop Elio Chacon occasionally collided. Chacon spoke little English and had trouble understanding when Ashburn was calling him off the ball.

Ashburn thus learned to say “Yo la tengo,” Spanish for “I’ve got it.” When Ashburn first used the phrase, it worked well in keeping Chacon from running into him. But then one day, Mets left fielder Frank Thomas crashed into Ashburn while chasing a ball.

After the dust settled, Thomas said to Ashburn:

“What the heck is a Yellow Tango?”

A commenter on the article points out that the language barrier in sports is not exclusive to Latinos—baseball players from South Korea and Japan face the same issues and many use translators to communicate.

Read the full article here.

A proposal for a public bilingual charter school failed to pass last week in Austin, Texas. The school was competing with five others for selection by the State Board of Education. Texas has capped charters in recent legislation due to some overspending since the first charter schools opened 10 years ago.

Austin Community School, the proposed school concept, would incorporate classes in both Spanish and English, with a stronger emphasis on Spanish in the earlier years, taught by instructors experienced in the International Baccalaureate program and dual-language education.

The goal of the Austin Community School is to offer a complete, well-implemented dual language program to all children of Austin, regardless of race or economic background, [Austin Community School board treasurer Lori] May said. There are no dual language programs in Austin outside of private schools, and many parents can’t afford to send their children to these schools.

The school would start with Spanish- and English-speaking children ages five to seven (kindergarten and first grade), and would add a grade each year. The school’s supporters cite research that children excel in school and have a lower drop-out rate when taught in a bilingual environment.

Supporters haven’t given up on the bilingual charter school proposal, and are looking for other opportunities and financing to push forward.

Read the full article in The Daily Texan here.

Early exposure to two languages gives bilingual speakers a huge advantage when learning a new language, a new study from Northwestern University shows.

The study used three groups of native English-speakers: English-Spanish bilinguals, English-Mandarin bilinguals, and English monolinguals. When each group was asked to master a set of words in an invented language that had no similarities to either Spanish or Mandarin, the two bilingual groups learned nearly twice as many words as the monolingual speakers.

Researchers think this adeptness translates to strengths in other types of language learning and verbal capacities.

The study has important implications for educators who are considering the appropriate age at which to introduce foreign language instruction as well as for parents who in increasing numbers have an option to enroll their children in dual language immersion programs.

“We’re seeing that exposure to two languages early in life carries far-reaching benefits,” said co-author Kaushanskaya. “Our research tells us that children who grow up with two languages wind up being better language learners later on.”

Despite the benefits of early childhood language instruction, some parents fear that a second language will distract or confuse their child. However, this article suggests that do bilingual children are actually better able to ignore irrelevant information than non-bilinguals when learning a second language.

This set of studies adds to comparable language acquisition research, some of which suggests that the onset of Alzheimer’s in bilinguals is delayed by four years compared to monolinguals.

Related article: Speaking more than one language may slow the aging process in the brain.

Even though Tom Zabkowski has lived in the United States for almost 20 years after immigrating from Poland, he struggles to lose his accent. What’s more, he believes it’s holding him back in job interviews.

Many people with foreign accents have recently been taking accent-reduction classes because they don’t feel that they are being understood, and are therefore less marketable. Accent-reduction coaches interviewed for the Tribune report say they’ve seen a recession-related increase in students.

Employment experts say it’s not just Zabkowski who’s putting in the effort to make himself clearer and more marketable — in this down economy, every advantage helps when applying for a job, and accent reduction is part of that.

Stephanie Bickel, who runs a speaking firm with six instructors in Chicago, says that some people are not coming in to reduce a foreign accent, but to change the tone of their voice to sound more professional. “There’s been a noticeable increase in [American] men and women seeking to lower the pitch of their voices,” Bickel said. “It’s a trend that seems to be recession-related.”

Read the full story here.