Workforce Language Services

Working with teen girls in a low-income urban area, I’m often surprised by their reactions to what I perceive as sexual harassment.  While I bristle at the way their male peers interact with them and initiate contact, the young women I work with don’t seem to object, at least outwardly.  A study of 600 young women and their experience with sexual harassment and their perceptions of it notes that culture and socio-economic class colors how we see harassment.

Brown and Leaper note that it is important for girls to be able to identify sexism and sexual harassment as environmental factors, lest they attribute negative experiences to their own faults and suffer erosion of self-esteem. Frequent sexual harassment may lead girls to expect and accept demeaning behaviors in heterosexual romantic relationships, and sexist remarks.

To read Science Daily’s summary of the study, click here.

In a post on the Future of Media blog, Maria Lopez-Knowles opines that the election of Obama illustrates what demographers have predicted: that we as a nation are becoming a hybrid of various cultures and that shortly those historically in the minority will become the majority.

Lopez-Knowles goes on to say that advertisers must become savvy about the unique characteristics of Hispanics and be aware of the differences between generations to effectively market to this powerful demographic:

Taken from the blog post are her thoughts on Hispanics across generations and language use:

Most advertisers bifurcate the Hispanic market by linguistics – if they are immigrants, we’ll market to them in Spanish, if they are US born, we’re reaching them with our current English-language general market campaigns, so we’re covered. That assumes reach alone is enough to make an emotional connection that will lead to brand awareness/consideration.  More importantly, it erroneously presumes that assimilation happens in two generations; the reality is the path to assimilation takes three generations.  So if you think you are reaching the second-generation in a way that resonates with them via English-language alone, you are mistaken.  This target lives in two worlds.  It’s not about either/or (Spanish/English), it’s about AND. We’re hybrids.

To read the entire blog post, click here.

With funding support from the Missouri Foundation for Health, Centro Latino will provide health literacy and access for Latinos in mid-Missouri.  Thomas Adams, lead program officer, states that they already have various programs with components for Latinos, but this new initiative solely focuses on helping low-income, rural Latinos understand and access health care.

The agency is not new to assisting this demographic with their health care needs, but the new model will essentially allow them to guide limited English proficient Latinos through a health care system they may not understand very well:

Public health and social service have always been a large part of Centro Latino’s service to the community. Over the past decade, it has helped visitors with many procedures that can make health care complicated for those who struggle with English or are new to the area, like the filling out of medical forms, the translation of documents, the procuring of care for those without insurance or documentation.

“I just want the people to feel comfortable and supported and not alone.  Many times when one arrives here they feel very alone,” said Zapata, who has already begun her work with Promotores.

With the new program, Crespi expects its public health and social service efforts to be even more organized than before. He also hopes that the program will encourage more people to take advantage of the number of resources provided by Centro Latino (ESL classes, Spanish courses and an after-school youth program).

Follow this link to read the entire article from the Missourian.

The Contra Costa Times reports on the effect of the recession on foreign-born Latinos.  The article compares unemployment rates of Latino immigrants to those of American-born minorities, and notes that, while the percentages still favor the former population, the rates of unemployment still surge for thsi group:

In at least one sense, immigrant Latinos are still better off than native-born Latinos and African-Americans, two groups that have higher overall rates of unemployment. About 11.5 percent of African-Americans were unemployed in the last three months of 2008, and 9.5 percent of native-born Latinos were without work, said Kochhar, who looked at information from a monthly survey conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau.But in the past year, no group has dropped from the nation’s workforce at a faster rate than Latinos from abroad, Kochhar said. Some of the problems along Monument Boulevard can be measured by the record 6,500 people who now seek free food every month from the Monument Crisis Center, said Sandra Scherer, the nonprofit’s executive director.

To read the entire article, click here. And for related commentary from the New York Times about compassion for workers regardless of immigration status, 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.

The Miami Herald reports on the growth of Spanish in mainstream U.S. culture.  The article is full of examples of how Spanish is becoming more and more evident on television, in movies, and in theatre.  The article also cites the publication of the  Enciclopedia del español en los Estados Unidos, which chronicles the use of Spanish in more than 80 articles.

The article also notes:

The shortcomings are still many: Hispanics are worried that the new generation is not speaking Spanish well, or not speaking it at all. Americans don’t consider speaking a second language important enough to devote funding to quality bilingual education.

”I don’t subscribe to the view that English is overwhelming and that it will overpower Spanish and make people forget the mother tongue,” Lago says. “The momentum of Spanish is unstoppable, the numbers tell the story — but I don’t think a triumphant posture is appropriate.”

But what’s certain, linguists says, is that a significant social evolution is taking place.

To read the entire article, click here.

A scholarly feature article in the Migration Information Source examines the role of the feeling of belonging in the process of immigrant integration in modern times.  Drawing from ethnography, the article focuses on the immigrant experience in England, but the author also identifies 10 feedback circuits that are application to any country in the world in which immigrants reside.

These 10 feedback circuits, or areas from which people receive messages about belonging run the gamut from the familial to the cultural to those that necessitate support from the larger culture.  A few of these markers are particularly interesting to those striving for cultural competence:

8. Everyday public services that are of the people as well as for the people. In rural societies, police officers, health professionals, and teachers live in the same communities they serve. The patterns in cities are less clear-cut, and the mismatch between public services and communities creates tensions, such as the continuing battles over Muslim schools, or health care that is attuned to Koranic teachings.

A related issue — acute now for long-standing working-class communities — is the perceived injustice of decisions and distributions. In the United Kingdom, public hostility to asylum seekers often comes from the perception that asylum seekers have privileged access to resources.

9. Homes. If people like you, your family, and your friends can afford housing in the community (to rent or to buy), and the owners or landlords are willing to rent or sell to you and those like you, then you are receiving a positive message.

Public-housing policy also matters. The Young Foundation’s work showed the very damaging effects of UK public-housing policies that separated families in an effort to allocate strictly according to need. Although classic social-policy terms justify this type of rationing, such policies essentially told local people they had no claim on their locality.

10. Law and its enforcement. The legitimacy of law — that it reflects the community’s values and protects its interests — is critical to belonging. In many places, new negotiations are needed over nonnegotiable rules (for example, on the place of forced marriage).

To read the entire article, click here.

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.

Francisco Cigarroa enters as chancellor of the University of Texas system with inclusion in mind.  One of his goals is to relax admissions policies which automatically admit Texas residents in the top ten percent of their class.  By relaxing this policy and looking at other factors besides GPA, he hopes to increase diversity of the U of T-Austin:

Cigarroa said the system could keep or even increase diversity in the student body even if the top 10 percent law is modified or eliminated.

“I think we can find an appropriate balance where universities not only look at the top 10 percent, but they also look at those wonderfully competitive students who may have not made the top 10 percent but have done something incredibly special,” Cigarroa said.

A friend in the State Senate states in the article that Cigarroa is the face of Texas’s changing demographics and will serve as a role model for the Mexican-American community.

In a Newsweek opinion piece, Henry Cisneros shares his thoughts on investing in Latinos as a necessary part of investing in the success of the United States.  His call to action holds both America and its Latino residents as accountable for their part in ensuring that the U.S. continues to grow.

He also speaks to the importance of retaining culture while adding American culture and the English language to Latinos’ American experience:

Of course, Latinos must also take advantage of the opportunities that do exist, and invest in American society. Immigrants must do whatever they can to master English. They must prepare themselves to succeed in the workplace, and to guide their children through the school system. They must save to buy their own homes, and work to provide their families with a health plan, retirement plan and savings account. They should participate enthusiastically in civic, community and religious activities. And they should strive for full citizenship.

To read Cisneros’ thoughtful words, click here.