Category Archives: USA

by monzo

The right to language access and mental healthcare for forced migrant victims of gender-based violence in US detention centers

Melissa Wallace

University of Texas at San Antonio

Currently in the United States there are over 200 detention facilities holding over 500,000 detained immigrants (Detention Watch Network, n.d.). Mexicans and Central Americans are disproportionately targeted (Provine, 2013; Wallace & Hernández 2017), and the institutional racism at play at the moment of detention extends to additional marginalization and discrimination in the case of LGBTQ+ detainees and victims of gender-based violence (GBV). Such detainees are at considerably higher risk than the general population for mental health disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, isolation, grief, shame, psychological stress, generalized anxiety, and helplessness, as well as higher rates of sexual violence (Bernardes, Wright, Edwards, Tomkins, Dlfoz and Livingstone, 2010; Hopkinson, Keatley, Glaeser, Erickson-Schroth, Fattal and Nicholson Sullivan, 2017; MADRE, Human Rights and Gender Justice Clinic, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, and Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project, 2019).  Such forced migrants are often subject to prolonged detention without language-assisted access to mental health services, in spite of general agreement that interpreter services enable patients to talk about problems and feelings and are integral in providing mental healthcare for refugees and forced migrants (Gartley & Due, 2016; Geiling, Knaevelsrud, Böttche and Stammel, 2021; Van de Geuchte & Van Vaerenbergh, 2021). 

Although U.S. Immigration and Customers Enforcement (ICE) claim to provide meaningful language access to LEP detainees in relation to placement in segregation, sexual abuse and assault prevention and intervention, and mental health care, among other things (ICE, 2019: ii-iii, 8), the need for mental health services for LGBTQ+ detainees and victims of GBV is acute, and providers in detention centers report that mental health services are largely inadequate or absent  or even that they come in the form of punitive practices (MADRE et al.: 6-8; Woodman, Kehoe, Saleh and Rappleye, 2019). To that end, this presentation turns a critical eye toward the broken promises between language access to mental health services for victims of GBV in US detention centers and the reality described by the non-profit organizations which serve this population. This presentation calls for compliance and heightened protections for language access for victims of gender-based violence in US detention centers.

References

Bernardes, D., Wright, J., Edwards, C., Tomkins, H., Dlfoz, D., and Livingstone, A. (2010). Asylum Seekers’ Perspectives on their Mental Health and Views on Health Social Services: Contributions for Service Provision Using a Mixed-Methods Approach. International Journal of Migration, Health and Social Care, 6(4), pp. 3-19. https://doi.org/10.5042/ijmhsc.2011.0150

Detention Watch Network. (n.d.). Immigration Detention 101. https://www.detentionwatchnetwork.org/issues/detention-101#:~:text=In%20Fiscal%20Year%20(FY)%202019,and%20Customs%20Enforcement%20(ICE)

Gartley, T., and Due, C. (2015). The Interpreter Is Not an Invisible Being: A Thematic Analysis of the Impact of Interpreters in Mental Health Service Provision with Refugee Clients. The Australian Psychologist, (52), pp. 31-40. https://doi.org/10.1111/ap.12181

Geiling, A., Knaevelsrud, C., Böttche, M., and Stammel, N. (2021). Mental Health and Work Experiences of Interpreters in the Mental Health Care of Refugees: A Systematic Review. Frontiers in Psychiatry, (12), pp. 1-18. https:// doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2021.710789 

Hopkinson, R. A., Keatley, E., Glaeser, E., Erickson-Schroth, L., Fattal, O., and Nicholson Sullivan, Melba. (2017). Persecution Experiences and Mental Health of LGBT Asylum Seekers. Journal of Homosexuality, (64)12, pp. 1650-1666. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2016.1253392

MADRE, Human Rights and Gender Justice Clinic, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, and Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project. (2019). Eroded U.S. Asylum Protections for Gender Based Violence Survivors: Published in Advance of the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review of the United States of America at the UPR Working Group’s 36th Session. https://www.madre.org/press-publications/human-rights-report/eroded-us-asylum-protections-gender-based-violence-survivors

Provine, D.M. (2013). Institutional Racism in Enforcing Immigration Law. Norteamérica, Year 8, Special Issue 2013, pp. 31 – 53. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1870-3550(13)71782-8

U.S. Immigration and Customers Enforcement (ICE). (2019). National Detention Standards for Non-Dedicated Facilities. https://www.ice.gov/detain/detention-management/2019#

Van de Geuchte, S., and Van Vaerenbergh, L. (2021). A non-native-speaking patient with and without an interpreter: what is the difference? A case study in mental health. The Interpreters’ Newsletter (26), pp. 29-51. https://doi.org/10.13137/2421-714X/33261  

Wallace, Melissa; Hernández, Carlos Iván. 2017). “Language access for asylum seekers in borderland detention centers in Texas.” Revista de Llengua i Dret, Journal of Language and Law, issue. 68, 2017, p. 143-156. https://doi.org/10.2436/rld. i68.2017.2940

Woodman, S., Kehoe, K., Saleh, M., and Rappleye, H. (2019, May 21). Thousands of Immigrants Suffer in US Solitary Confinement. International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. https://www.icij.org/investigations/solitary-voices/thousands-of-immigrants-suffer-in-us-solitary-confinement/

Melissa Wallace is an Associate Professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio (U.S.A), where she directs the graduate certificate program in translation and interpreting studies. A certified court interpreter and certified healthcare interpreter, she is currently serving her second term as appointed member of the Licensed Court Interpreter Advisory Board of the Judicial Branch Certification Commission for the Supreme Court of Texas. She is a board member of the Society for the Study of Translation and Interpretation (SSTI), the non-profit educational and research foundation of the National Association of Judicial Interpreters and Translators(NAJIT). Her research focuses on indicators of aptitude on court interpreter certification exams, accreditation exam models, and non-professional interpreting and translation in legal and public services. Wallace carried out research on court interpreting certification models in Finland in 2016 as the Fulbright-University of Tampere Scholar. 

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Exploring the Intersectionality of Personal Identities in Interpreting Education and Training: Empowering Interpreters toward Social Justice and Equity

Michelle M Pinzl

Recent social movements like Black Lives Matter, current events related to immigration crises around the world, and politics that have racialized the global COVID-19 pandemic have brought to light historic racial and class disparities in the United States, while calling to action communities across the nation. The role of interpreters and translators as both cultural brokers and facilitators of language access, is intrinsically linked to action for racial and social equality in our society. Interpreters and translators themselves, often members of minority groups, are not only negatively affected by racial policies in their workplaces, they also bear witness to racial injustices of Limited English Proficient individuals within medical, social, judicial and community contexts. 

On the other hand, many interpreters in the US have the power to become instruments of cultural, ideological and political change because they are able to leverage their lived experience of marginalized identities as a direct contribution to linguistic justice. This presentation highlights the benefits of interpreters exploring their own intersecting identities in the interpreting classroom and other training spaces. Examining how privilege works to normalize some identities and cultural practices over others, may ultimately encourage community and empathy within interpreting and translation circles. Furthermore, it may help interpreters and translators identify instances where privilege manifests as racist behavior or has been established in racist policies, reproducing or perpetuating privileged and oppressive frameworks. Based on data collected from surveys and focus groups from T&I classrooms and workshops, this presentation outlines how identity building exercises, personal reflection and facilitated group discussion in T&I education may encourage interpreters to gain a deeper understanding of identity politics and privilege as they manifest. These techniques not only empower interpreters to continue advancing the profession, but also have the potential to mitigate the intersectional failures of language policy, while centering minoritized voices. 

Michelle Pinzl (she/her/ella) is the Coordinator of the Community Interpreting Certificate and Assistant Professor at Viterbo University where she teaches Spanish, French and Interpreting Studies. She earned her Master’s degree in Foreign Languages and Intercultural Management from the Université de Limoges in France and is currently a PhD candidate at the Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona, in Spain. She is a certified Spanish<>English Court Interpreter for the State of Wisconsin and a certified Medical Interpreter through the Certification Commission for Healthcare Interpreters (CCHI). Michelle has been interpreting for social service agencies, schools, businesses, as well as various sectors of the farming industry in Wisconsin since 2006.

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Linguistic Refoulement: Indigenous-Language Speakers Seeking Asylum in the United States

Katherine M. Becker

The principle of non-refoulement undergirds international asylum law. Non-refoulement stipulates that states should not return people to places where they will face particular forms of danger. This paper analyzes language as a nexus of refoulement, employing as a case study the experiences of Indigenous-language speakers seeking asylum in the United States.

This paper makes two principal contributions to the study of language and asylum law—one theoretical and one empirical. First, it introduces linguistic refoulement as a theoretical tool for understanding the intersections of language and asylum. Linguistic refoulement refers to situations where a lack of language-access protections cause states to return people to places where they face harm. The paper develops a taxonomy of five related linguistic bordering practices that produce linguistic refoulement: linguistic erasure, linguistic neglect, linguistic subordination, linguistic impatience, and linguistic isolation.

Second, this paper offers empirical evidence suggesting that the United States immigration system contravenes non-refoulement by failing to meet the language-access needs of asylum seekers who speak Mam, K’iche’, Nahuatl, and the hundreds of other Indigenous languages spoken in the Western Hemisphere. By subjecting Indigenous-language speakers seeking asylum to these overlapping linguistic bordering practices, the United States disproportionately refouls them back to situations involving threats, persecution, and torture.

This paper then offers a framework for developing strategies to protect people against linguistic refoulement, arguing that it is only by understanding the varied manifestations of linguistic refoulement that we can meaningfully protect linguistically vulnerable populations. The paper concludes by proposing policy changes, including a special immigrant visa for skilled interpreters and the abolition of immigration detention for linguistically vulnerable populations.

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The position of Spanish in the US: foreign or vernacular language?

PhDr. Mgr. Karolína Strnadová

Due to the migration from Latin America to the US in recent decades, the Spanish-speaking community is growing very fast in several US states, and therefore, the use of Spanish is increasing considerably in the US territory. Spanish earns its position in many areas of North American life: interpersonal communication on the street or in the work, commercial inscriptions and road signs, media, advertisements, etc. However, the position of Spanish within the Spanish-speaking community that resides in the US has changed. On the one hand, Spanish speakers who do not speak English continue to arrive and Spanish is their only or main language of communication. On the other hand, the new Spanish-speaking generations that were born in the US do not always speak Spanish at the level of their parents and/or prefer to use it over English. Where to look for the explanation for such a trend? 

The contribution will tend to offer a synthesis of several points that come into play when explaining the linguistic and social context of the United States: effects of the coexistence of diverse cultures and languages; linguistic centralization from the diachronic point of view; monolingualism versus bilingualism in the educational system; linguistic rights, social justice and the inclusion of the Spanish-speaking community; community translation and interpretation; code-switching and the Spanish of the new generations. The paper is based on various studies and academic works on the subject, official, legal and historical documents and the personal experience of the author.

Keywords: Spanish, USA, Spanish speakers, education, rights to language, linguistic centralization

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When interpreting does not remove the language barrier: interpreter ethics at odds with due process in U.S. courts

Janis Palma

Non-English-Speakers and Limited English Proficient individuals (jointly referred to as LEPs in this paper) who come before the courts in the United States as criminal defendants face at least two major obstacles to full comprehension of the proceedings against them: being unable to speak or understand the language of the courts and the dramatic differences between the criminal justice system in the U.S. and their home countries. These differences in legal systems are rarely, if ever, taken into account when addressing LEP populations’ due process rights. Several court opinions at the federal level prior to the 1970s culminated in the Court Interpreters Act (28 U.S.C. 1827), which triggered the creation of a nationwide interpreter certification program. Subsequently, however, an independent nonprofit organization produced a Model Code of Ethics for interpreters that has been adopted by nearly every state and professional association. Its practical effect has been to nullify all pre-existing jurisprudence concerning LEPs’ constitutional rights by imposing an accuracy canon on interpreters that disregards the intended listener’s capacity to comprehend what is being interpreted. Based on the language of applicable statutes and court decisions, I exemplify how the current accuracy standard for interpreters in legal settings jeopardizes LEP criminal defendants’ due process rights. Guided by the prevailing theories on interpreting and translation, I argue in favor of revising this section of the Code and propose a new accuracy standard for interpreters in legal settings that takes into account the intended listener while making the proper allowances for evidentiary requirements. I further propose that such standards would necessarily have to be different for each of the settings in which interpreters engage with LEP defendants throughout a criminal prosecution, from initial contact with law enforcement to imposition of sentence.

Keywords: Interpreting, court interpreting, interpreter ethics, judiciary interpreting, accuracy standards, U.S. courts, interpreter certification, translation.

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Literacy, digital literacy, and extreme linguistic vulnerability: Barriers and solutions to access to language justice

Katie Becker

Panel: Inclusive Responses to Language Violence

Katie Becker will present findings from her research about speakers of Indigenous languages in the U.S. immigration system and her work with non-dominant language speakers in the U.S. legal system. In these contexts, the median person seeking interpreting and translating assistance is often assumed to be a Spanish speaker, highly literate, and able to use a computer with ease.

But this is not the case. Many people speak other languages than Spanish–including Indigenous languages and other languages of limited diffusion. One in five American adults is “functionally illiterate.” The digital divide in the United States hits non-English speakers especially hard: only 12% of foreign-born people demonstrate a high level of proficiency with computers and digital tools, and many households simply do not have access to the internet. Each of these factors overlap to create barriers that seem insurmountable.

In this presentation, Katie will explore how these barriers overlap to prevent the most vulnerable from accessing justice in the civil and immigration contexts. Katie will consider how much of the U.S. language-access infrastructure is focused on meeting the needs of Spanish speakers–an important effort, but one that neglects people occupying positions of even more extreme linguistic vulnerability. And many of the proposed access-to-justice solutions like technologized court forms, apps, and machine translation simply will not work for people who cannot read them, who lack access to computers, or who are uncomfortable using technology. She will consider how translators, interpreters, and multilingual navigators can help bridge these language, literacy, and digital-literacy gaps to help people access justice.