Hitting A Language Wall: The Life or Death Translation Crisis at the U.S.- Mexico Border By: Marina Rodriguez and Kimberly Cruz
SAN FRANCISCO, California — Over the past three years, the U.S.- Mexico has seen an increased wave of migrants leaving their native countries, most of them fleeing gang violence, poverty, and sometimes even death threats. As the militarization of the border continues to escalate under the Trump administration, migrants are arriving at the border pleading for protection and safety.
With the arrival of more indigenous migrants, the Mayan community now faces an avalanche of language barriers at the border. As the demands for Mayan interpreters are not being met, many of the migrant's asylum cases are being left in limbo.
On December 8th 2018 a 7- year-old Guatemalan girl died in U.S. custody while trying to cross the border with her father. She was identified as Jakelin Amei Rosmery Caal Maquin.
Her father, Nery Gilberto Caal Cuz, was given a form to sign in English, even though the father's native language was Q'eqchi'. As reported by Watson, it is unclear how much the father understood what was written on the form and if it would have made a difference in saving the young girl’s life.
According to experts, Jakelin’s plight is just one of many cases that have been reported where a language barrier has posed a life threat to an indigenous person.
“What is happening on the border is that Mayan language speakers are dying. The kids that are not alive anymore are Mayan language speakers” Adelson said.
Eastland, Oakland is home to the highest speaking Mam community that is doing their best to provide interpreters for migrants in immigration courts. Asociacion Mayab, a nonprofit based in San Francisco, is the only training program that prepares Mayan- language interpreters in the country since 2008. Naomi Adelson, a certified state and federal court Spanish interpreter, serves as an instructor for the interpreter's through Asociacion Mayab. Adelson designed the curriculum to train a new generation of Mayan interpreters with skills such as how to improve memory and how they can make their own materials while on the job.
Oswaldo Martín is one of those interpreters working to bridge the language gap. Martín began interpreting 4 years ago as a way to pay for college, but over the years has learned about his own history and the reasons why the Mayan community came to the United States in the first place.
“After I started interpreting for my people, I started hearing from older folks the things they went through. It opened up my eyes to why we were here in Oakland and why a lot of people followed afterwards. It’s me learning more and more about my own history and my town’s history, '' said Martín,
Young interpreters such as Martín are trying to create equivalent legal terms from English to Mam. Martín along with other colleagues are working on a glossary that will serve as a guide for future interpreters since there is no direct interpretation from English to Mam. Martín points out that Mam is not a dialect but a Mayan language and should be treated as one. Although this nonprofit agency is starting to meet a demand, the language barrier is still present and affecting Mayan language speakers seeking asylum at the border.
“I see in the history books our history has stopped. Mayan culture has been kept away, hidden and it’s been my job in these past few years to unearth it digging through 500 years of history" Martín said.
Mam is part of the top 10 languages spoken in immigration courts. It holds the 9th spot in most spoken languages in immigration courts nationwide, making it more common than French and Russian, as stated by the 2018 U.S. Department of Justice Statistics. In 2014 Mam ranked number 14, and five years ago both Q'eqchi' and Mam did not even make the top 25 languages.
There are about 30 recognized languages that come from the Mayan language family. Although over 6 million people across Mexico, Belize, and Honduras speak Mayan languages, Guatemala is the country with the highest percentage of native Mayan speakers reaching almost 40% in the United States. As the increase in Mayan language grows the need for Mayan interpreters is also in high demand.
With limited Mam interpreters, Mayan migrants are unable to communicate with border patrol agents, and therefore unable to communicate their reasons for seeking asylum. Adelson states the two main problems are that many of these migrants are unaware that they have the right to ask for an interpreter in their native language and are granted a Spanish interpreter instead. The second problem Adelson states is that the border patrol industry doesn't care to provide the necessary funds to professionalize interpreters.
“They definitely do not know that they can ask for an interpreter in their native language, but it is also questionable whether immigration believes they have the right to that” said Adelson, “They have these exploited interpreters, unprofessionalized group that they hire around the United States of America because they do not want to put the massive funding it would require to professionalize these interpreters.”
Currently, the U.S. federal government only offers certification in Spanish. Interpreters in any other language would fall under the language skilled (non-certified) sections. The pay gap difference between certified and non-certified interpreters is about $216 for a full day and $115 for half a day.
A border patrol agent who has asked to not be identified in order to protect his employment, will go by the name of Evan. He has been working on the front lines for about two years in Texas.
“We’ve had one case where we had a language that caught us off guard. We weren’t expecting it. They did not speak English or Spanish,” said Evan.
Evan said the language barrier did stall their asylum process and although they had someone who spoke a dialect, it was not enough for them to communicate with the migrant. The border patrol agents had to call their operation center, let them know the migrant’s nationality, and find a “translator”. Evan reported that this specific case took them about an hour or hour and half to find an interpreter and initiate the asylum process.
“We do have resources to reach out for specific languages, especially if something like this happens. Depending on language, depends how long we can find an interpreter,” said Evan.
Evan also explained the difficulty of contacting interpreters in person due to the odd hours in which cases may come in. “Sometimes they come in 2 or 3 in the morning, we still need to contact someone but they’re not going to be in the port 24/7. So having someone on the phone within 24 hours to start the case is helpful,” said Evan.
The border patrol agency in Texas uses technology to their advantage to help them communicate with migrants for basic instructions while they await an interpreter to get contacted.
“Everything is on an app just very basic instructions just so they are not just sitting there waiting for a translator. We do as much as we can on our portion. We do not really go into the document portion of the processing until the interpreter comes so it does not later affect their asylum case. We make sure all our T’s are crossed and I’s are dotted to make sure their process doesn’t get held up because of a translation issue,” said Evan.
The border patrol agent located in Texas has not heard anything from other border sectors and was unaware language barrier was an issue faced.
In focusing on building a tight knit community, Adelson and the new generation of interpreters are hopeful that a resolution to this language crisis will bring down the language wall at the border.
“Language justice is only as good as the resources you put into it, it needs to be more valued in our world. It’s not just a random kid that is dying, it is a kid who is speaking a different language and that is separated from their families and they couldn't’ say what was going on,” said Adelson.