Megan Squared

Megan Figueroa: Hi, and welcome to The Vocal Fries Podcast, the podcast about linguistic discrimination. 

Carrie: I'm Carrie Gillon. 

Megan: And I'm Megan Figueroa. I almost said the word linguistic wrong. 

Carrie: Yes! 

Megan: Did you hear it? Did you hear a little catch in my throat? 

Carrie: Yes, I did. 

Megan: I don't know how I was going to say it, but...

Carrie: I don't know, but it's really easy to mess up the pronunciation of words.

Megan: It is, especially when you're like, people are going to be listening to this beyond you and me. So, I'm like, "I've got to get this right." But I take it way more seriously than I need to. At this point, I don't think people are going to stop listening because I said linguistic or something on accident. 

Carrie: Yeah, and if they did stop listening just for that, that would be, I don't know. 

Megan: Bizarre. 

Carrie: That'd be their thing, not our thing, and that's fine. 

Megan: It's like, I don't know, just the straw that broke the camel's back or something. Yes, that reminds me, I was listening to My Favorite Murder, and Georgia said that she broke up with someone because they pronounced GIF, like, GIF. I say GIF, but it's funny because Karen was like, "But that's not the only reason why." She was like, "Yeah, of course, there are other things, but then, that's the reason why I finally did it." And I thought that was pretty funny. 

Carrie: That is pretty funny, but also either pronunciation is fine. 

Megan: Yeah, exactly. I think I've stopped telling people that because I'm just like, I don't know. I'm not going to be able to convince you. If you wanted to have this hill, I guess you can have this hill. 

Carrie: Oh, but there are so many other hills that are more important. 

Megan: There are. Well, yeah. Speaking of, I mentioned this. I remember, I saw this on Twitter like 5 days ago, and I was like, we need to talk about this in the intro because it's so important. Joaquin Castro, he's a congressman, and he's chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. He introduced the Change Act, and it's correcting, alienating names in Government Act. So, it would eliminate words like alien and illegal alien from any federal documents, specifically from the Immigration and Nationality Act. It's going to eliminate all this dehumanizing language, which I think is long overdue. I think the first time I noticed this, I had my grandfather's green card, and it says alien registration card. I remember seeing this, I was like a teenager and thinking, that's really dehumanizing. Just the language is really dehumanizing. Do you have something like that? 

Carrie: Of course.

Megan: So, you have the same thing? 

Carrie: Yes.

Megan: And it says alien registration card? 

Carrie: Yeah, it says alien on it. So, because I'm a Canadian. But long before I moved to the United States, I knew that that was the terminology used in this country, and I was like, that's so bizarre. That is not the terminology we used in Canada, and I doubt it's used in many other places. It's very weird. 

Megan: It's weird. I don't know who came up with it, who wrote the first Immigration and Nationality Act. I'm sure that the foundation is racism. It's just like, just another word that, like, one step removed from human. It's so gross. It's so icky. I'm so happy that he proposed this, and I hope it goes through. This is, again, maybe because I'm a linguist, maybe because just getting my grandfather's green card when I was so young, as a gift, that it just sticks with me as something that's really disgusting and needs to be changed.

Carrie: It absolutely needs to be changed 100%. 

Megan: Yeah. So words matter. 

Carrie: Words do matter. Mm-hmm. 

Megan: Yeah. So, today we're talking about something really important. 

Carrie: Yes. It's kind of related to this. 

Megan: Yeah, exactly. And I think it even underscores more how important words are. 

Carrie: Right. Although it's more about the content of a message as opposed to an individual word.

Megan: Sure. Yes, absolutely. 

Carrie: But still words. 

Megan: Words into a sentence, into a discourse. But the building blocks are words. 

Carrie: Yes, they sure are. Yeah, we talk about how important interpretation services are in the United States, and actually how they're legally mandated in many, many arenas.

Megan: Yes. And many people don't know that, but it's been so since the 1965 Civil Rights Act. It's been updated, but for a long time, this has been something, and a lot of people skirt around the issue because assholes. 

Carrie: And money. 

Megan: And money. Yeah. 

Carrie: Speaking of...

Megan: Of money? Money? Hey!

Carrie: Yes.

Megan: Pivot! Pivot. 

Carrie: We have a Patreon, and we're getting kind of close to being able to pay for transcripts. 

Megan: Yes. 

Carrie: So, our next goal is to be able to pay for transcripts going into the future. So, if you want to support us, check us out on patreon.com/vocalfriespod. 

Megan: Yes, we're completely independent, and we like it that way. We aren't beholden to anyone. This is a clean campaign. 

Carrie: Nice. 

Megan: So, help us out, and we can remain clean. So, should we get to the very important episode that we have? 

Carrie: Yes. 

Megan: So, today we have Megan Strom. She's an assistant professor of Spanish at the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse. Her research focuses on the representation of ideology in Spanish and English-language media in the United States and the ways in which linguistic and semiotic structures in these media perpetuate or challenge the negative representations of Latinx immigrants.

But today, we're really excited to have her here to talk to us about something she does on the side, beyond the university, which is serving the local Spanish-speaking population as a volunteer medical and legal interpreter, ESL teacher, and community organizer to provide quality resources in Spanish to Latinx immigrants. Thank you so much for being here, Megan. Thank you. 

Megan Megan Strom: Thank you. 

Carrie: Yeah, thank you. 

Megan: It is always so weird to say your own name to someone else. 

Megan Strom: I know. 

Megan: I don't know why. 

Megan Strom: Megan Squared, Megan Squared. 

Carrie: And you spell your name correctly. 

Megan Strom: We do. We do. There is no prescriptivism there. 

Megan: No, that's the only time when I've had Starbucks and they're like, is it M-E-G-A-N? And I'm like, "Yes, I think that is correct."

Megan Strom: Of course it is. 

Megan: I'm always like, why does it matter? You can spell it however you want. 

Carrie: It's true. 

Megan: As long as you pronounce it the same way. 

Megan Strom: You're right. 

Megan: It's true. But for some reason, I think that a lot of them are traumatized by all the names they've misspelled. So, they're like, "I'm going to get this one right."

Megan Strom: That's true. That's true. Forget about that. 

Megan: So, we wanted to talk to you today about interpreters because of just what's happening in the world around us today, what's happening at our southern border. With the migrants and asylum seekers that are coming to our border, we're actually finding that a lot of them don't speak Spanish. And so, we kind of want to talk about that today, but let's start at the beginning. What is the role of an interpreter? 

Megan Strom: Oh my, okay. That's like, do you prepare the 1-minute, 5-minute, or, like, 5-hour answer to that? In really, really simple terms, for me, and this is more of a personal answer, to me, an interpreter gives somebody else a voice. I'm giving somebody a voice. As I would say more of a critical linguist, but just also somebody who has seen what's going on in the world of interpreting in the United States. It's also an advocacy role. I don't really know a great way to say it. It's not advocacy willy-nilly. You can't just go in there and break all the interpreting rules and be like, "I'm going to advocate all the time." But it's certainly, I think, an understated or perhaps misunderstood part of being an interpreter. So, number one, you are somebody's voice, and that's 99% of what you should be doing as an interpreter just under normal circumstances, but you absolutely need to go in being prepared to advocate. And I think, for me, at least that's where the critical linguistics part can and should come in. 

Megan: Okay. And what do you mean by critical linguistics? 

Megan Strom: Good question. It's hard, right? Because, as an interpreter, you're out there on your own, being sort of a bridge between two possibly completely different worlds. So, what advocacy means for each interpreter can be different, and what my advocacy looks like is going to probably be very different from any other interpreter, but my advocacy is coming from a... and this is where I said the critical linguistics part of understanding the power differentials that happen because of language access or no language access, the power behind language, the power that certain people have in using their language.

So, it's just really being aware of all of those dynamics, all of the structures that are in place - hi, kitty. Sorry about that. That are probably always at play in these situations. So, I think maybe my approach to interpreting and interpretation is always going to be couched or framed in terms of critical linguistics, knowing that there are lots of structures in place that are going to affect those interactions. 

Megan: What kind of training or certification do interpreters need to have before they can do the kind of work that you've been doing. 

Megan Strom: Okay, so I'm going to come right out and say, I'm not certified, and that may or may not make people think that I'm qualified to speak on this topic. But certification is going to be different depending on where you're working and what kind of interpreting you're doing. The two types of certifications that exist that I'm aware of are for medical interpreting and legal interpreting. So, if you want to be a certified medical interpreter, and I think it surprises sometimes people, you actually don't even need a college degree. You need a high school diploma. You need to complete an accredited sort of preparation program. I believe it's 40 hours right now, but they're going to increase it to 60 hours at some point. 

A lot of times, people will take a college course or a college certificate. I did a bootcamp, an interpreting bootcamp. Then, once you complete that, you can go and take the actual certifying exam. To become a certified medical interpreter, there are actually two different exams available. To become a court, so legal interpreter, a certified one, there's one single exam, The Federal Court Interpreter Certification Examination. That's if you want to be certified. Are there people out there working who are not certified? Of course, there are. So, that's like a whole other issue as far as how is it that you can work and do this sort of work as an interpreter and not even be certified. We can talk about that. We don't have to talk about that.

Megan: Well, I'm thinking immediately of how there's such a desperate need for interpreters in the legal system that, then you're like, "Well, is it better that you can do it without certification or is it harming anyone?" It's almost a clusterfuck. 

Megan Strom: [crosstalk] No, it is. That's a perfect word for it. That's a perfect word for it. I endorse that term for this situation. Just because I think, no, I know, the US is way behind the times as far as understanding multilingualism. What I mean more by that is just how are we providing language access to people? If you look at places like Europe, they're so on top of it. And yet, still, in the US, we have situations where we're like, "Oh, we need an interpreter? Really?" And it just shouldn't be happening. There are laws in place that would be covering this, and it still happens all the time. 

Megan: So, what are those laws that are in place? 

Megan Strom: Okay, I actually write all these down because I actually teach this stuff, but it's...

Megan: It's a lot. 

Megan Strom: It's messier than I think it should be, right?

Carrie: Yeah.

Megan: Yeah.

Megan Strom: So, if you trace it back, it started with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The sectors that that affected with regards to language access were health care settings, so obviously, hospitals and doctor's offices and things like that, education, legal and court settings, and also housing services. Initially, that should have been enough to get you language access in those sectors, but then, in 2000, we got something from Bill Clinton called the Executive Order 13166 or just EO 13166. The title of this was Improving Access to Services for Persons with Limited English Proficiency, which most of us just say LEP persons. It's basically reaffirming Title VI, but I guess it happened for a reason. 

It means that language-based discrimination constitutes a violation of Title VI. It was very clear that federally supported and federally assisted social service agencies need to provide language assistance services for persons with LEP. And that's where we start to get into exemptions and caveats and exceptions and things like that, because what's federally supported and federally assisted. And that's why, because then all of these institutions were like, "Wait, wait, wait, does that affect us?" So, then, in 2001, the Office of Minority Health of the US Department of Health and Human Services said, "Okay, we're going to create a set of standards so that the implementation happens and works." And so, these were then called national standards for culturally and linguistically appropriate services. Still is, even with that, then, they started to get all this pushback, like, "Okay, this is going to cost too much. We can't afford this." 

Then, there was even more. The Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice published guidance on the implementation of that executive order, which is 13166 to determine basically, do you have to do it, or do you not have to do it. It's really interesting because the exemptions that they set forth really put a lot of pressure on particular places. I'm getting a lot of this information from a paper by Glen Martinez, who is at the Ohio State University, really amazing, but it was specifically about health care settings. So, that's a lot of what this information is about, but I would imagine that it would apply to other settings as well.

The people who essentially did not have to provide language access were if the organization had a small budget, if the organization focused on non-emergency, non-life-threatening conditions, or if they were located in a geographic region with low proportions of LEP persons. Then we just start to get this division of, like, "Okay, well, you actually don't have to do it, but then all of the other places do." And so it's this disproportionate application of these mandates. That's where it gets really, really interesting. 

Megan: Well, it seems like it shouldn't be the case that people are fighting to get out of providing...

Megan Strom: Exactly.

Megan: ...language access to people. It's that simple. That's fucked up.

Carrie: Well, you know why. It costs money. 

Megan Strom: Yes. And that's the first thing is that people are like, "Wait, we can't afford this, so how can we get out of it?" So, I agree that it's probably funding. 

Carrie: Yeah. 

Megan: And so when it comes to the courts, is that cut and dry? You need to provide an interpreter in the courts?

Megan Strom: Yeah, but does it happen? Does it happen? I think what we see is that you have basically a staff interpreter for the most commonly spoken languages in the area, which in a lot of areas is going to be Spanish and perhaps one or two other languages. But for the topic that I know that we might be addressing in a few minutes here, what about the less commonly spoken languages? What are you going to do with that? Because under these mandates, you have to provide language access for any LEP person receiving these social services, but the language that you're needing to interpret to and from is extremely uncommon in the United States, then what are you going to do? 

Carrie: Yes. And there are many, many, many languages.

Megan Strom: Exactly. Yeah. For sure. 

Megan: Maybe let's talk about some of those languages. Probably, I'm assuming most of them are spoken in Mexico or Central America. Is that correct? 

Megan Strom: Meaning like those coming from Latin America or? 

Megan: So, the people who are less likely to be able to even access interpreters in the United States.

Megan Strom: Oh, they can come from anywhere. Anywhere. 

Megan: They can come from anywhere?

Megan Strom: Anywhere, yeah.

Megan: But at the southern border right now, [crosstalk] the majority of them. 

Megan Strom: Probably, Guatemala, actually. 

Megan: Guatemala?

Megan Strom: Yes.

Carrie: And so, what languages do they come with? Do they need interpretation support in? 

Megan Strom: Oh my goodness. I have no clue. That's a great question. So, like a lot of Mayan languages, yes, people coming from Mexico as well. People coming, like I said, from anywhere. There are lots of indigenous languages spoken in South America as well. That's not where a large number of immigrants are coming from right now. But like Kʼicheʼ or Kaqchikel or any of those languages, Nahuatl, do we have people prepared to interpret in legal settings, and in medical settings too, for those languages? And if not, how are we going to make that happen? Because that's a mandate. That has to happen, but how is it going to happen if there is a single Kʼicheʼ English interpreter in the US, or none? 

Carrie: I wonder, since there are so few speakers of these Guatemalan indigenous languages, what is the incentive for them to do this? Would they have to volunteer? Is there money to pay interpreters? What does that look like? 

Megan Strom: Yeah, if you're a court interpreter, yes, you get paid. The more training and preparation you have and certification you have, the more you get paid. Well, these people are probably not going to get certified because they're going to get called maybe once or twice a year to work, so what's the incentive to go get certified to be able to do like 10 hours of work a year? So, already, they're probably going to get paid less because of the category that they're in because they're not a certified interpreter. And the work is like a piecemeal. It's maybe like 10 hours one week in January and a couple more hours in March or something, so the incentive is probably not there. They see the same thing in the health sector. It's the same thing, where you have even trilingual interpreters. So, say Kʼicheʼ and Spanish and English, and they were saying, "Yeah, it's a great skill to have, but I can't even get a part-time job out of this." So, what's the incentive? 

Megan: Right. And even now, is it still a part-time job? All of these people that are coming to the southern border, are there enough speakers of these indigenous languages, that it is more than just a part-time job? 

Megan Strom: Right. And I don't know exactly what the situation is right now or when we had larger numbers back in 2014. I can't speak to that. But my sense is just that it's not enough of an incentive. Even if maybe you could piece together a part-time job or a full-time job for 6 months or an entire year, it's probably not going to be ongoing.

Megan: Right. And then these people that would decide to be interpreters would have to go to where these people are because they might not even live in the area, right?

Megan Strom: They do just phone interpreting. 

Megan: Oh! Okay.

Megan Strom: Yeah. Which is probably not the best. It's something.

Carrie: But it's better than nothing. 

Megan Strom: Yes. 

Megan: So, then that makes me wonder, what does a typical day for a legal interpreter look like then? Or interpreter at all if they're doing these phone interpreting.

Megan Strom: Again, I'm not a certified interpreter, so I can't speak exactly to that. I think it depends what kind, are you an immigration court, or are you in civil or criminal court. Because you can be an interpreter in any of those. But of course, criminal court is going to look way different because you're probably doing like depositions and talking about what happened if it was a crime or something, versus immigration court, where you're talking about credible[?] fear, arrival dates. What is the situation in your country? Why did you leave? Why are you here? Things like that.

The situation of interpreting right now is really interesting because a lot of times, there are language or interpreting agencies that sort of, I hate to use this term, but [inaudible] their interpreters. So, if the court system needs like a Kʼicheʼ interpreter, they'll go, "Contact Interpreting LLC," and they'll say, "Hey, do you have a Kʼicheʼ interpreter?" And they'd be like, "Yeah, I'll get them on the line for you in five minutes." So, it could be like where me, as an interpreter, I just sit at home all day and I either know my schedule or I'm on call and I can just get notification from my agency that, "Hey, we need you, get on the phone in five minutes." 

A lot of it, it could just be from home, and that's why I say it could be piecemeal. You probably don't have a regular schedule. If you're going out to places doing, like, actual court interpreting or medical interpreting for a medical examination, yeah, you would know ahead of time. But a lot of times, phone interpreting is just like you're sitting at home, taking the calls. 

Carrie: Wow. I hadn't even considered that. 

Megan: And I'm thinking, okay, so somewhat this is happening over the phone, and you mentioned before, critical linguistics. These asylum seekers are trying to tell the courts, "I fear for my life," what could possibly be lost through an interpreter? Do you have to be careful when you're interpreting these people's fears? 

Megan Strom: If you're certified, nothing should be lost, ever. But that's the danger, and it's the rule of the dice if you're choosing to have a non-certified interpreter or a non-trained interpreter. Those are the questions that we have. Is it better to have a non-trained interpreter than to not have one at all? What are the implications or what are the possible risks? Is it better to have a non-certified interpreter who might completely change your message, but something is getting across versus maintaining your message but not having a voice. It's so difficult. It is so difficult. And studies? Definitely. Like studies have been done, linguistic studies and other studies, showing what the outcomes of having non-certified, non-trained interpreters, and it is scary. It is scary. Deportation, death, I mean, getting your child taken away from you. That's scary. And you're putting your life in somebody else's hands if you're having an interpreter versus not having one at all and then not saying anything, like those are the options for you. That's horrible. 

Carrie: I mean, the whole situation is really horrible. Putting your life in the hands of the court who has no necessary reason to actually want to help you. It's not really set up for that. 

Megan Strom: Mm-hmm. For sure. Which is why, again, why I was mentioning, like the US is really behind in this, of understanding language access is a right. It's so much seen as a privilege, like, "Oh, you're lucky that you got an interpreter or you're lucky that your message got across. You don't speak English." Why is it seen as a privilege? It's a right. But the system is set up such that, "Oh, well, we're going to have to wait three hours," even though you're in the emergency room to get a Kʼicheʼ interpreter on the phone, or, "We're going to have to delay your hearing for a week because we can't schedule your Kʼicheʼ interpreter for another week," or something. 

Carrie: Right.

Megan: Right.

Megan Strom: The burden falls on the LEP person.

Carrie: Yeah, I mean, in the emergency room, especially, that just seems so terrifying. I mean, you could die. 

Megan Strom: You could, and people have.

Carrie: Yeah. Or you could just be like in more pain for longer. I mean, there are all sorts of implications of that. And I already hate the ER. 

Megan Strom: Well, that's the thing, it's like people already have, not everybody, but lots of people already have an inherent fear of these systems, of the legal system, of medical systems. How about we just augment that by a thousand by not giving them language access to it? I mean, I cannot imagine the fear.

Carrie: Right. And even when you delay a court proceeding, they are stuck in these detention centers. 

Megan Strom: I was in one in January for a week interpreting and the amount of anxiety and insomnia there is just unbelievable.

Megan: I can only imagine. I mean, now people are like sleeping on the dirt outside now. 

Megan Strom: Yeah.

Megan: Oh, and they're also putting gay people in solitary in these detention centers now. 

Megan Strom: I had not heard that. Oh my goodness. 

Megan: I just heard it yesterday. Things are getting even worse. 

Megan Strom: Oh, my goodness. Yeah. 

Megan: So, when you were at the detention centers, were you interpreting? You were interpreting there?

Megan Strom: I was, yeah. 

Megan: And so, they are providing some interpretation services in detention centers? 

Megan Strom: No. I went on with the Southern Poverty Law Center. It's just a group of pro bono lawyers who were going in attempting to get people out on bond or parole. And so, I was their interpreter. It's so complicated. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, I don't know. I know that you had asked me to think about what can we do for non-interpreters, those are the sorts of organizations we can support because, I mean, I was there doing it, they're making stuff happen under very difficult circumstances. I'm starting to do what's called remote intake. So, doing intake over the phone with people who are detained in detention centers to speed up that process. So, just doing it straight up, and in my case, in Spanish and English, because that's my language pair. And that's on behalf of RAICES[?]. I'm sure you've heard of them. 

Megan: Yeah. 

Carrie: Mm-hmm.

Megan: They're in Texas, right? 

Megan Strom: Exactly. Any support for those organizations because they're making it happen. They're getting the language access out there. But it's all volunteer work.

Megan: I think a lot of us don't think about these type of things when we're giving our money to organizations, like Southern Poverty Law Center, or what have you. These are things that seem so simple or small, but it's not. And to know that that's what they're using our money for is, really, it's great to hear. Not that I doubted them, but it's just something I don't think about. Like you think about the big things that you can see. 

Megan Strom: Right. And it's not tangible. You're not seeing the attorney sitting in their office for 12 hours a day. I mean, the number of cases we went through the one week that I was there, I was shocked. It was incredible that the efficiency, the amount of work that we did. I can't speak for every organization, but I was proud to be there, and I was so happy I was able to be able to do it because they're making it happen. 

Carrie: That's great. I mean, they're definitely a great organization, but it's really great to hear that they're also efficient. 

Megan: Yeah.

Megan Strom: I mean, given all the circumstances, because my goodness, it's just an unbelievable amount of paperwork and organization and coordinating and just getting into a detention center takes an unbelievable amount of time. 

Carrie: Yeah, they don't like having people come into them in the first place, so.

Megan Strom: No.

Megan: Yeah. I can imagine. Do you know if there are any particular languages, language pairs or triplets, that are needed, or is that outside your area of expertise? 

Megan Strom: I mean, probably all of them in Guatemalan.

Carrie: All the Guatemalan languages?

Megan Strom: Yeah.

Carrie: I wish I knew what all of them were, but I don't.

Megan Strom: We can look them up at some point. And unfortunately, what ends up happening in those emergency situations, or this needs to happen right now situations, is you do just like chain interpreting. This is so wrong in so many ways, but often, if it's a parent and they have a child there who speaks Kʼicheʼ Spanish, the child will interpret into Spanish and then somebody like me who does Spanish-English, I'll go from Spanish to English. And so, it's like this chain. But then you're relying on somebody who's not trained, not qualified and also...

Carrie: A child.

Megan Strom: In a very, very precarious, stressed, difficult position already to do more work, and that's really unfair. But it happens. 

Carrie: Yeah. Again, it's like, is it better to have the child interpreting or to have nothing happen at all. 

Megan Strom: Yeah.

Carrie: But it's so much stress for that poor child.

Megan: I wonder when unaccompanied minors arrive, and they need interpreters, again, talking about critical linguistics and this power differential. What is it like to interpret for a child? 

Megan Strom: Actually, it's a great question. As an interpreter, I would not approach it any differently because my job is to preserve their message however they deliver it. So, we think about things like register, formality, pragmatics, lexicon, and dialect, which dialect are they speaking? So, as a good, I'll say linguist, coming at it from that perspective, it should not be different. But thinking of the advocacy part, if you're getting the sense that the child is really not understanding, they're not understanding the legalese that are getting hit with or whatever it is, that's where you might have to advocate and stop the interaction and say, "The interpreter would like to signal that it appears that the child's not understanding or perhaps more clarification or perhaps we can change the register or whatever it is." I mean, I wouldn't use register because that's linguistics.

Megan: Right. 

Megan Strom: Initially, the approach should not be different because that's what I would do for anybody I'm interpreting for. I need to be ready to advocate for them, but preserve their message however I possibly can. 

Megan: And there'll be some adults who won't necessarily understand either, so the same issues could still arise.

Megan Strom: Yeah, exactly. 

Carrie: So you mentioned one technique by saying that you can stop it and say, "They don't seem to understand." Are there any other ways that interpreters can help in that way? By coming out of the interpretation and talking directly to the court? 

Megan Strom: So, what we say when we're getting trained is that you should be the least amount of invasive as you can be when you're doing these advocacy things. And there are different levels of invasiveness, right? You can start really low scale and just say, "This is the interpreter speaking or the interpreter would like whoever in this case to know that it appears that the client, the patient, whoever, doesn't understand. Perhaps whoever you are could repeat it in different terms or give a different rendition of that." And then you can kind of scale it up to the point of just completely stopping the interaction and saying, "We need to like recast this whole thing or this person's completely lost or perhaps you would consider explaining what asylum is or refugee status is or what special immigrant juvenile status is or any of those things." The amount of stopping the interaction and advocating is scalable and it sort of is just dependent on, like, what the sense you're getting as an interpreter that the person you're interpreting for is lost or unable to follow or whatever it is. 

Megan: Have you interpreted for a child under these circumstances for the asylum cases? 

Megan Strom: No, I've only interpreted for children in medical settings. 

Megan: Oh, okay. How young have they been? 

Megan Strom: Tiny. I mean, I don't know how old kids are when they start to talk. It's horrible as a linguist, I shouldn't say that as a linguist.

Megan: Pretty really young.

Megan Strom: I'm sorry. However.

Megan: You know, like two.

Megan Strom: However old they are when they start speaking. Little kids. But the situations were different. It was like checkups to be able to get into preschool or kindergarten or things like that. I've also interpreted where a parent is in the room, and they brought several children with, and you interpret for everybody. And so, it's little tiny all the way up to 15, 16, 17.

Carrie: Right. Okay. Wow. That must have been difficult. 

Megan Strom: Yeah. But they train you for that. You're always trained to interpret for multiple people at once or if people are talking at the same time, you're prepared for that. 

Carrie: Okay, cool.

Megan: When you teach your boot camp, did they at all address what would happen if you come across people who are deaf or hard of hearing? 

Megan Strom: Oh, yeah. So, actually, sign language has completely different, I would say like boot camps and training and things like that. They're like way, way ahead of the curve. They're way better than probably everybody else. They have many more, I think, standards and best practices and things like that. They're way better.

Megan: Okay.

Megan Strom: Yeah. We're way behind the times. 

Megan: But I imagine, I mean, if it's someone from Guatemala...

Megan Strom: Oh my goodness. 

Megan: ...that comes.

Megan Strom: I don't know.

Megan: I mean, what a [inaudible] like...

Megan Strom: I don't know. 

Megan: You're not equip for that at all.

Megan Strom: Not at all. I agree. No.

Carrie: Yeah. I don't even know what sign language do they use in Guatemala.

Megan: Right.

Carrie: I don't even know that. I know Nicaragua has one.

Megan Strom: Yeah. I've been seeing that even like some communities will create their own or maybe it's the entire country. I have no idea what you would do in that situation. That would be so difficult.

Carrie: Yeah. I mean, there might already be an answer out there and listeners can let us know.

Megan Strom: Yeah. Please. Please. 

Megan: I have a question that, I mean, I assume that I know the answer because I assume all of this is so nefarious when it comes to immigration courts. But are there officials that try to get away with not providing the interpreter, just like passing it through really quickly? 

Megan Strom: Will I get in trouble if I say? Is the government going come after me? 

Carrie: They haven't come after us yet. 

Megan Strom: Okay, good.

Megan: I mean if the government's going to come after you for that, we're way beyond [inaudible]. 

Megan Strom: Okay, so yes. Wait, but I mean, I think, yes to that, but yes in so many other settings I've seen. Yes in the health setting. Yes in school settings. I think it really all comes back to like language awareness, language ideology. What does it mean to get language access? Is it a right or is it a privilege? I think the people who want to push it through and just be like, "Oh my gosh, just get by with what you know or oh my gosh, just use your kid as an interpreter." It's coming from a very particular perspective. And so, lots of people who don't understand how important language access is could possibly be the one saying, "Ah, we're good. Let's just go with that one." I don't think that most people who are limited English proficient would be the ones to stand up and be like, "No, give me my interpreter." 

Carrie: They might not even know that they have that right. 

Megan Strom: Exactly. Most people in the US wouldn't know that somebody should have that right. Somebody who's just arriving to the United States to be expected to know the intricacies and the requirements and the legalities, that's just so much to expect of a person.

Megan: Well, I can't imagine you'd want to step out of line.

Megan Strom: That's the thing, yeah.

Megan: You wouldn't want to ask for more than, and be denied.

Megan Strom: Exactly.

Megan: For us non-interpreters, do you happen to know if, could we advocate for policy change and giving more money to interpretation services or is anything like that happening? Because it sounds like money is what needs to happen. 

Megan Strom: Meaning for like large scale change or?

Megan: Right. Or is the best thing to do right now to give to places, so small nonprofits, these pro bono lawyers and such. 

Megan Strom: Gosh, that's such a tough question. To be fair, I asked these questions in my class all the time, and I never have to answer them myself. I just listened to everybody else's answer and ponder them. I never thought somebody would actually ask me. I think that goes with anything. How does change happen? Does it happen through policy? Do we press our legislators? Do we put our money to put a band aid over the problem where it's happening right now? I think all of the above, because do people who are sitting in an attention center deserve language access right now, immediately? Of course, they do. And so, somebody like me who has language skills, I'm happy to do that. And guess what? You don't even need to be an interpreter to do that. You can totally do intake in whatever language, in this case, it's probably mostly going to be Spanish, and you don't have to interpret. You can just do the intake in that language. But you can also support monetarily these organizations that are providing the language access, or you can go out and advocate for better policies. Like for me, what I try to do in my classes is say, "We need to change ideologies," which is huge. That's systemic, and that's going to take forever, and it's going to require a lot of effort. But can we work at it little by little in lots of different locations? I would say yes.

Megan: Yeah. I think one of the things that I always -- the advice that I have for anyone who wants to be better about this kind of stuff is to just stop and think about what other people are experiencing. It might just start with thinking about how not everyone has access, because they don't speak the language. 

Megan Strom: Mm-hmm.

Carrie: Yeah. And what I think about is, sometimes, because we always think at the federal level, but especially right now, like, what's the point? 

Megan Strom: Yeah. 

Megan: Yeah.

Carrie: But you can also work at the state level or even the municipal level, and actually, that's where a lot of really good change can happen. So maybe go to your city and say, "How can I help you actually serve LEPs in this community better?" 

Megan Strom: For sure. Like for me, as an educator, I think, how can I use what I know to help my students become aware so that when they go out and become health providers, or when they go out and become attorneys, or when they go out and become teachers themselves, are they making sure that interpreters are available for parent-teacher conferences? Are they sending home all the school materials in the languages that the parents speak? Things like that.

Megan: Yeah, that's a really good point. I was at the doctor the other day, and it was the first time I'd ever seen a sign that said, "It is your right to have an interpreter." 

Megan Strom: Oh, wow.

Megan: And it had it in all these different languages. 

Megan Strom: Beautiful.

Megan: And I was like, "I have never seen that before."

Carrie: Me neither.

Megan: So, even if you're like a pediatrician, or you're some sort of doctor, putting a sign up like that that says like, "This is your right."

Megan Strom: That's beautiful. Oh my goodness. 

Megan: Yeah.

Megan Strom: And I have so many students who are like psychology majors, or PT, OT, places where I think they come into my classes thinking, "Well, what do I need to know this for? People don't need interpreters in these sectors." Yes, they do. And I'm so glad they're taking the class to understand how they can continue to advocate in those places where we would traditionally say, "Ah, what do you need an interpreter for occupational therapy?" Yeah, you do. "What does a social worker need an interpreter for?" Yes, you do. And I'm so glad that we have students going out who have that understanding now. 

Megan: Right.

Carrie: That's really great. And that's exactly the best part of education is being able to...

Megan Strom: Yeah, for sure.

Carrie: ...help people understand, for me, language and linguistic discrimination, but whatever topic. 

Megan Strom: Yeah, for sure. 

Carrie: Awesome.

Megan: And to see that shift happen throughout the semester. 

Megan Strom: Oh, they're quite resistant when they arrive. 

Carrie: Oh, yes.

Megan: Exactly. 

Carrie: Oh, yes.

Megan Strom: It's not an interpreting class, the one that I teach, but I say, if you're going to be a provider, you need to know this stuff because you're going to be the one who can say, "We need an interpreter here." Or you could be one of those people who are like, "No, we can get by," and I don't want that to continue to happen. 

Megan: Right.

Carrie: That's great. 

Megan: Well, I think, you've mostly already answered it, but is there a way to sum up why it's so important to have an interpreter?

Megan Strom: For me, like I've already mentioned, language access is a right. It is not a privilege. For those of us who have not felt what that feels like, especially in linguistic terms, our language is our identity, and our language is our ability to be a genitive. That is the way we can have agency. We can do things and have power. Therefore, if we take away some of this language and their language access, we're taking away their identity, we're taking away their power. And so, just thinking about, what would I do if I didn't have my language, if I didn't have my voice? I can't even imagine how I would get through life like that, my everyday life, much less, how would I get through a legal system or a health system or an education system? I can't even imagine what that would feel like. So, the importance of having language access in these sectors cannot be overstated. And the actual application of the regulations that are in place, I wish it would happen fully. But the more we learn about it and the more we can put ourselves in somebody else's shoes, maybe we can start to push for it in our everyday lives locally, like you had mentioned. And hopefully we start moving in the right direction. 

Megan: Great. 

Carrie: Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you for that.

Megan Strom: Mm-hmm.

Megan: Yeah. Thank you so much. Again, it's just being aware, that's the first step. 

Megan Strom: Yes.

Megan: It's absolutely the first step. I'm so happy that you are here to talk to us, and we get this out to our listeners and make more people just aware, so that they can take the next steps themselves.

Megan Strom: For sure. 

Carrie: Yes. Thank you so much.

Megan Strom: If you're a certified interpreter and you're listening, I'm sorry if I said wrong. I'm in the academic world. I've tried my best to understand interpreting. I think we can both learn from each other. I've learned so much from the interpreting world...

Megan: Oh, definitely.

Megan Strom: ...so, so, so much. So, I'm really always happy to get feedback from interpreters. I think our perspective, too, coming from linguistics can really help that feel too.

Carrie: Yes, absolutely.

Megan: Oh, absolutely.

Carrie: And we will definitely have to send this episode to the Troublesome Terps, the podcast. 

Megan: Yeah, we have some interpreter friends.

Carrie: All of our interpretation. It's amazing.

Megan Strom: Yes! Oh my Gosh. Oh, they're going to come at me. Oh, no. 

Carrie: No, no, no. [Inaudible] 

Megan: They're so sweet. 

Megan Strom: Okay.

Carrie: So, so lovely, yes. Well, we'd like to leave our listeners with our final message. Don't be an asshole. 

Megan: Don't be an asshole.

Megan Strom: I love it.

Carrie: Thanks again, Megan.

Megan Strom: Thanks, y'all.

Carrie: The Vocal Fries podcast is produced by me, Carrie Gillon, for Half Tone Audio. The music by Nick Granum. You can find us on Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at Vocal Fries Pod. You can email us at [email protected] and our website is vocalfriespod.com.

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