Workforce Language Services

The census form will be published in Spanish and English for the first time, reports the AP. Many communities are counting on resources from Uncle Sam to fund local projects, and federal aid will be based on the 2010 census. Every person counted matters.

As we’ve seen before, both documented and undocumented residents (and other hard-to-reach populations) are wary of the count, and distrustful of the government after seeing immigration raids and deportations. But community outreach groups are doing everything they can to get all residents recognized.

One of those ways is publishing and distributing the census forms in Spanish.

“If the government is reaching out to you in a language you understand, it helps build trust,” said Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. “I think the community has become really sensitive to political developments, and the census is the next step in this movement that we’re seeing of civic engagement in the Latino community.”

The forms will be automatically mailed to households in areas where more than a fifth of the population is reported to speak Spanish as a primary language. Other languages are available upon request. The AP reports,

Latino advocates hope the bilingual forms will help show their strength in numbers to underscore their growing political influence and garner more in federal funds that are determined by population.

But the question remains: will this effort help promote the census to under-served groups, or will distrust of the government by Hispanic residents continue to prevent communities from receiving the resources they need?

Read the full AP article 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.

Even though ELL (English Language Learners) students make up the fastest growing student population in the U.S., teacher-prep courses are not readying teachers for this reality.

The population has grown astoundingly: between 1996 and 2006, the overall U.S. student population has only increased by 3%, whereas the ELL student population has grown 60%. The students come from diverse language and cultural backgrounds, and are foreign and native born.

A Government Accountability Office study on teacher preparation reports that “English language learners…speak more than 400 languages, with almost 80 percent of these students speaking Spanish… These students also include refugees with little formal schooling and students who are literate in their native languages, resulting in a range of educational needs.”

Mary Ann Zehr of Education Week points out that most teacher prep courses focus on students with disabilities and provide field experiences with disabled students, while ELL instruction is not regularly provided. She writes:

Interestingly, administrators of teacher-prep programs told the GAO that one of the main reasons they don’t have stiffer requirements for teachers to be trained to work with ELLs is that their state standards don’t require it of them.

The GAO notes that state standards sometimes include limitations on the maximum number of program or credit hours, so I can see how it could be a challenge for teacher-prep programs to add a requirement that everyone take a course devoted to teaching ELLs.

But I wonder if blaming the lack of standards is really just an excuse on the part of the teacher-prep programs for not keeping up with how school demographics are changing in the United States.

Click here to read Zehr’s full opinion.

With immigration reform on the horizon and a potential mandate that all immigrants speak English, a new dilemma arises: where can people learn English? ESL classes aren’t always available due to long waiting lists and state budget cuts.

Moreover, it’s been reported that only 39% of ESL students reach a proficiency that can advance them to the next level. Why? Because with work and family responsibilities, students rarely have the time to devote to a full course load.

The solution, Marisa Trevino proposes in a USA Today editorial, is teaching immigrants English at work, embracing a shared responsibility between employer and employees. Not only could the employer get a future tax break, they are training their employees in an essential skill necessary to perform their job. Case in point:

TV station WFAA found that hundreds of low-level commercial aircraft mechanics in Texas had the necessary skill set for the job, but they lacked the language skills to communicate with supervisors or to read repair manuals. The report prompted Congress to demand that by March, the Federal Aviation Administration require all mechanics to be proficient in English.

McDonald’s is also following suit. They’ve created a 22-week ESL program for entry level management workers. The classes combine onsite and virtual language learning. Trevino concludes:

McDonald’s has learned what many ESL programs already have confirmed: The will to learn English is there. Smart companies will follow suit. It’s a win-win-win situation for employer, employee — and country.

Click here to read the full editorial.

We can help! To find out about WLS’s onsite English and Spanish language classes, click here.

Despite the regularity with which I find articles from all over the U.S. about interpretation in the court system, I am still amazed that each new article brings up something I’d not previously considered.

For example, take these articles from the Los Angeles Times and South Oregon’s Mail Tribune.  The LA Times article chronicles the difficulties courts face when trying to find a speaker of a rare language. In this case, they had to rely on telephone interpretation during the trial of an indigenous dialect spoken by only 7,000 people in Mexico.

In Ortiz’s case, attorneys initially thought he would need a Zapotec interpreter, court records indicate. A Spanish interpreter told officials he thought Ortiz spoke Mixe, an indigenous language spoken in eastern Oaxaca by an agrarian people who have increasingly been migrating to northern Mexico and the United States to find work.

So began the search for an interpreter for Ortiz.

Even among the indigenous populations in Oaxaca, Mixe is spoken by few people. And the language has four to eight variants that have grown apart over centuries as they were passed down orally with no standardization. Different variants of Mixe can be as different as French is from Catalan or Romanian, said David Tavárez, a linguistic anthropologist at Vassar College.

To read more about the search for an interpreter who spoke this particular dialect, click here.

The second article got me thinking about the emotional highs and lows of being an interpreter:

The job can be tough, especially when an interpreter has to communicate bad news. Stawsky has been in situations when a doctor has told a patient he has a terminal disease. She also has worked as a 9-1-1 operator and been part of some extremely stressful calls.

“I have had to take breaks from interpreting because of these situations,” she said. “As an interpreter you cannot say to the person, ‘I am so sorry for what I have to tell you’ and then say what the doctor said. You have to say exactly what the doctor says without putting yourself into the conversation. It can be hard.”

Some of Stawsky’s most trying jobs involved debtors seeking to collect money from poor families.

“Those calls are probably the most stressful,” she said. “Debtors can be very harsh.”

Go here for the rest of this article.

An exihibit displayed at Miami’s Freedom Tower art gallery until March 7th has some non-Spanish speakers confused because almost all of the accompanying text is only in Spanish. 

The exhibit sounds like it would be fascinating to those interested in the immigrant experience, but the author of the article was disappointed that the signage has not been adapted for English-speakers who would like the full impact of the photos and accompanying commentary.

In defense of Miami Dade College, it has been – overall – a bastion of bilingualism. In this instance the college is sort of a passive vessel, hosting an exhibition supplied by agencies of the Spanish government. If Spain really wants to reach out to all Americans – and not just to Hispanic Americans and others with a reading knowledge of Spanish – it should consider providing fully bilingual signage for such exhibitions as this, and for other events in Miami intended to promote Spanish culture and to foster international trade and tourism.

Before coming to Miami, Laberinto de Miradas was displayed in Mexico, Guatemala, and Peru, where of course no English translation was needed. For this venue, someone at the cultural center or the consulate should have adapted it to the distinctive linguistic needs of Miami.

To read the rest of the author’s commentary, click here.

A Newburyport, Massachusetts local paper profiled a Brazlian woman who works for the courts as an interpeter.  The article details not only her language skills and passion for travel, but her take on the important work of working as an interpreter. 

The article also highlights the complex interplay between the role of interpreter as a bridge for non-English speakers and the need to remain objective and simply transmit the ideas from one language to another:

There is no program to teach them about the law. They may get arrested because they don’t have the appropriate driver’s license. Even when they become aware, they don’t understand completely if they don’t have an interpreter. For example, they might think if they go to court, the judge can give them a driver’s license.”

 Although Dutra understands firsthand the problems that immigrants sometimes face while adapting to a new country and culture, her job requires her to remain objective.

 The job of the interpreter is to translate exactly what has been said, she explains. The interpreter is not an advocate for the victim.

 “We’re just there to convey information to both sides,” Dutra says. “We’re not an advocate at all. We can’t give the victim any moral support. That’s for the victim’s advocate. We have to remain impartial.”

To read the entire article, click here. 

The Society for Human Resource Management’s January cover story is about workplace English language learning.  Rich with information, this article includes a key quote:

“You don’t need English to work at Miller & Long,” says Myles Gladstone, the company’s vice president of human resources, who is fluent in English and Spanish. “But you do need English to get ahead.”

The article points out that the initial impetus for supporting English language learning is safety.  But employers who truly support the upward mobility for their foreign born employees create opportunities for them to learn English for personal growth. 

The SHRM story notes that while supporting employees in their English language acquisition improves the bottom line as well as staff morale, few companies are actually providing employees with opportunities:

Despite growing popularity, employer-provided ESOL classes are rare. Only about 10 percent of employers responding to Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) studies in each of the last two years said they offered ESOL classes as a benefit. Last summer, 24 percent of respondents to a SHRM online survey said they cover some or all of the costs associated with English classes.

Click here to read this informative article as well as access several other articles, videos, and white papers dedicated to this issue.

Language Lines is often mentioned in articles about strategies for working around language barriers.  But this particular article about Pasco County’s demographic shift shows the impact that Language Line has had on communicating with non-English speakers at County offices. 

The article also provides a brief history of Language Lines Services and how heavily it’s currently being used:

Language Line Services, based in Monterey, Calif., has been around since 1984. The company’s first client was the police department in San Jose, and it has had cops and courts as clients ever since. Language Line now has approximately 25,000 clients, according to spokesman Dale Hansman, including hospitals, airports, grocery stores, credit card companies and 75 percent of the Fortune 500 companies. The company has 5,000 translators who speak 176 languages.

The economy is hurting. Not Language Line. Language Line is growing. The number of calls is going up. The number of clients is going up.

“It’s not a novelty,” Hansman said last week. “It’s a necessity.”

In Pasco, public transportation uses language line, the libraries use it, the 911 call center uses it, the sheriff’s office uses it.

To read the entire article from the St. Petersburg Times, click here.

A Wisconsin Law Journal article nicely outlines the process for becoming a certified court interpreter.  Dawn Maldonado shares her experience in becoming an interpreter:

It took Maldonado several months to crack the regular rotation of interpreters in Milwaukee and she along with others involved in the profession suggest that while the “freelance” job can be lucrative, it takes more than a bilingual tongue to succeed.

“It is your own business and it is up to you to (find) your clients and make them happy,” said Maldonado, who has provided Spanish interpretation since 2001. “But I think it is tough and a lot of people fall off because they don’t understand the legalese, which is a big part of the job.”

This article points out a few of the stumbling blocks to becoming a Spanish-English court interpreter: there are far more Spanish-English interpreters in Wisconsin than there are cases; many candidates will need advanced study in not only interpreting but also legal terminology; and the freelancing aspect of the work may make it difficult to make a living interpreting.

I’m pleased to see Wisconsin’s certification process clearly described.  I also find it refreshing that this article is a bit more tempered than others that I’ve seen, many of which make it seem that there is an unfilled need for Spanish-English court interpreters.

Click here for the entire article.