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Any Spanish speaker, native or non-native, knows that certain words in the language mean very different things depending on the country one is from.  Someting that is used in every day speech in Mexico might deeply offend someone from the Dominican Republic and vice verse. 

An article in the Yuma Sun describes one such incident that riled people up at a high school soccer game:

This case here, coach is yelling out to his players, players are hearing it left and right, nothing is done about it because it’s in Spanish. That’s a huge issue and an issue I want to speak up about.”

Nicewander said the injury was the turning point in the game. It happened at the 6:23 mark with his team up 2-0. Exactly two minutes later, Yuma High had its first goal, and with 1:46 left the Criminals tied the game.

“When you have a coach on the sidelines yelling ‘break them,’ ‘chocalo,’ smash into them, then you see a player go down an get carted off in an ambulance, it’s natural for a player to say ‘Wow, I’m not being protected, so if I come in on this guy, and he throws an elbow at me and I get hurt, what’s going to come out of it?’” Nicewander said.

This is a good example of people being overly sensitive to language use and looking for an offense where there was just a misunderstanding.  Rather than make it about lack of sportsmanship, it could have been about increasing understanding about word connotations and being more careful. 

To read the article, click here.

A recent Diversity Spectrum article provides a comprehensive overview of the changes in workplace hiring brought on by aggressive raids across various industries.  The article details Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) stepping up of actions taken against companies who fail to comply with immigration laws when hiring. 

Companies are now operating in a climate of fear at being targeted by ICE and currently have to choose between being compliant and being non-discriminatory.  Compliance is winning out:

There is a growing concern that companies may become so compliance-oriented with respect to immigration law that they risk discriminatory conduct, according to Lopez. To prevent this, HR executives must ensure that they are not being overly aggressive in their immigration compliance activities.”Sometimes the choice has to be made between immigration compliance and potentially discriminatory conduct,” Lopez says. “Companies should err on the side of lower liability, which now means risking a discrimination charge to ensure immigration compliance. But this must be a fact-based decision grounded in the specific workforce and the business line.”

If companies have to choose which gray area they will occupy, they will go with discrimination, Lopez says.

“Five years ago, they would have risked noncompliance on immigration issues to avoid any risk of discrimination charges,” he says. “Now, the opposite is true.”

However, if companies become so compliance-oriented that the workplace becomes hostile, those who are targeted may take action against the company.

On August 12th, the Workforce Language Services blog posted a link to an article describing the use of the Phraselator in NJ Police Departments.  Across the country, California police officers are piloting a similar device in San Mateo County.  The positively galactic sounding ECTACO Speechguard PD-5 provides a similar service for officers who are faced with a language barrier during traffic stops.

The town of Hillsborough isn’t your typical American melting pot, as its 10,000 residents have a median income of $260,000.  Nonetheless, the officer who has the device has used it four times within the past three weeks:

But approximately one-third of the community is Asian and a significant percentage of that populationspeaks a bare minimum of English. The percentage of the town’s Hispanic population is in the low single digits, but many of the domestic workers who tend to the residents’ mansions speak only Spanish.

As a result, the town’s police officers handle situations involving people who speak limited to no English on about one in 15 to 20 calls, Chinca said.

The most common of these situations for Chinca is “your basic everyday traffic stop,” he said.

Hillsborough’s Lieutenant says that if the first device works out well that more will be purchased for the department. To read more, click here.

In Mesa, Arizona the police department has turned to volunteers to assist monolingual 911 dispatchers when Spanish-speakers call in.  The reasoning for suspending use of the Language Line (a for-profit interpretation service) is the budget crisis that so many municipalities are facing:

In 2006, Mesa spent $118,000 to translate calls that weren’t in English. And in the first four months this year, the city has spent $28,000. Most of the calls were in Spanish.

With only five certified Spanish-speaking operators out of 120, the communications center often relies heavily on a program called Language Line.

The program allows dispatchers to connect with translators for most of the world’s languages. However, as the need for translation services rises and the city faces tighter budgets, new ideas — like using volunteers — are becoming necessary.

“During lean times, it’s the creative ideas that are working,” said Cari Zanella, public safety communications administrator. “For us, it’s a perfect fit. Volunteers want to help and our 911 center can use the help.”

Police Chief George Gascón came up with the idea for the volunteer program after department analysts figured out how much translation services were costing the city.

I’m a bit torn over this move.  There’s an obvious need for translation services for 911 calls, and I do understand that something’s got to give when there are budget cuts.  But I can’t help but wonder why, in a major metropolitan area in a state with huge numbers of Spanish-speakers, only five out of 120 dispatchers speak Spanish?  I don’t think that moving towards use of volunteers is necessary, as the article states, but I do think that recruiting more bilingual paid employees is necessary.

To read the entire article, including quotes from one of the volunteers, click here.

While immigrants with limited English skills are increasingly able to access medical care in their native language, this trend has not carried over into the pharmacies where they fill their prescriptions.  A Gotham Gazette article about this issue quotes a report by the New York Academy of Medicine in which they found that two thirds of pharmacies in the NYC area do not provide translations of prescription instructions despite the fact that 88 percent of city pharmacies serve limited English speakers. 

Obviously this could prove disastrous or even fatal for limited English speakers who either take their medicine incorrectly or don’t take it out of fear that they’ve misunderstood the directions.  Health care advocates working with city council members are currently working on legislation that would require translation services:

“Giving New Yorkers access to the information they need starts with simple, common sense steps, like providing translation services and extra medical instruction for those with limited English proficiency who are filling prescriptions,” said Gotbaum in a prepared statement. “Our proposed legislation will help break down the barriers many currently face when seeking health care and ensure that no New Yorker is left guessing when it comes to questions about their medication.”

Concerns from the pharmacies about implementing such legislation include worries about lack of pharmacists in general, much less multilingual ones, the dangers of providing incorrect translations, and the inability to serve all customers in neighborhoods with more than one dominant language. 

A 2006 article from the New York Times detailed the findings of researchers who surveyed the practices of pharmacies in the Bronx.  While their research was limited to that particular borough,  those conducting the study suggested that this problem is most likely not limited to this corner of the country, a suggestion that is further backed up by the more recent article. 

OSHA reports from 2006 show a frightening correlation between deaths of construction workers and lack of English-speaking skills, especially for Hispanics and those born outside of the U.S.  The reports also show that those working non-union jobs experience a higher rate of fatality than those working for unions.  Anecdotal evidence of sacrificing safety measures for speed points to the need for enforcement of safety procedures and instruction for non-English speakers in their own language.  Learning English is a process that takes years, and while many of these construction workers may be moving towards fluency, this article shows the need for immediate attention to safety in workers’ native languages. 

Oscar Paredes, executive director of the Latin American Workers Project, said outreach and training by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and city agencies are ineffective because of the language barrier.

“The city government doesn’t have a lot of people who speak the language or that can offer the appropriate training,” he said.

Paredes said some workers ignore safety precautions, sometimes because they are apathetic, or sometimes because they are afraid to lose their job if they refuse to perform a dangerous task, such as scaling heights with no harnesses or guardrails.

“If you don’t go up, you lose the work,” he said.

No one doubts the importance of learning English for immigrant workers, but when their lives are at risk, the construction industry needs to meet them where they are language-wise. 

There is also a cultural issue at play, especially when workers come from countries where safety measure are lax or non-existent.