What we learned as Interpreters in 2014.

Dear Colleagues,

Now that 2014 is coming to an end and we are working towards a fruitful and meaningful 2015, we can look back and assess what we learned during the past 12 months. As interpreters our career is a constant learning experience, and from talking with many of my colleagues, 2014 was no exception. I personally grew up as an interpreter and got to appreciate our profession even more. The year that ends gave me once again the opportunity to work with magnificent interpreters and many of my dearest colleagues.

Our profession had some positive developments this year: IAPTI and ATA held very successful conferences in Athens and Chicago respectively, many colleagues passed the written portion of the United States Federal Court Interpreter exam, the state of Illinois chose quality and rolled out its state court interpreter certification program, there were many opportunities for professional development, some of them very good, including several webinars in different languages and on different topics; we had some important technological advancements that made our life easier, and contrary to the pessimists’ forecast, there was plenty of work and opportunities. Of course not everything was good. Our colleagues in the U.K. continue to fight a war against mediocrity and misdirected greed, colleagues in other European countries, like Spain, are under siege by governments that want to lower the quality of translation and interpreting services in the legal arena to unimaginable levels of incompetence; interpreters around the world faced attempts from special interest groups to erode our profession by lowering professional standards and creating questionable certification programs, and of course, we had the para-interpreters trying to “take over” the market by charging laughable fees under shameful working conditions in exchange for miserable services.

During 2014 I worked with interpreters from many countries and diverse fields of expertise. I was able to learn from, and to share my knowledge and experience with many colleagues dear to me and with some new interpreters and translators. This past year gave me the opportunity to learn many things at the professional conferences I attended, from the interpreting and translation books that I read, and of course working in the booth, the TV stations, the recording studios, and many other venues.

On the personal level, 2014 was a very important year in my life: I met new friends, developed new relationships, realized and learned to appreciate how good some of my old friends are, noticed and understood how I had been taken advantage of and stopped it, and after careful analysis, I reaffirmed my determination to remain a citizen of Chicago by purchasing a beautiful condo in a skyscraper located in the heart of the Magnificent Mile. This year I had the honor and the fortune to present before conference audiences in different continents. During the year that ends I traveled to many professional conferences and workshops, all good and beneficial. Because of their content, and for the impact they had on me, I have to mention the Mexican Translators Organization / International Book Fair (OMT/FIL) conference in Guadalajara, Mexico: a top-quality event, the National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators’ (NAJIT) Annual Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, the International Association of Professional Translators and Interpreters’ (IAPTI) Annual Conference in Athens, Greece, and the California Federation of Interpreters (CFI) Annual Conference in Los Angeles, California. My only regret was that for professional obligations I was not able to attend the American Translators Association’s (ATA) Annual Conference in my own town of Chicago. This year that is about to end was filled with professional experiences acquired all over the world as I constantly traveled throughout the year, meeting new colleagues, including one who instantly became one of my dearest friends, and catching up with good friends and colleagues. Now, as I sit before my computer reminiscing and re-living all of these life-enriching experiences, I ask you to share some of your most significant professional moments during this past year.

Las Posadas: The Mexican Christmas Season and Terminology.

Dear colleagues:

Every year when December comes along I find myself answering questions from friends and acquaintances about how Latin America, and specifically Mexico, celebrate the holiday season. American friends who want to organize a celebration for their children, school teachers who are staging the festivities for the school play, community center activists who want to celebrate the season with a cultural event, come to me to learn about the traditions, food, celebrations, and vocabulary.  Because this year has not been different, I decided to repost one of my most popular articles where I write about the most Mexican of these traditions: The posada. In Mexico the fiestas decembrinas begin unofficially with the day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and last through January 6 when they celebrate the Día de Reyes (Three Kings Day) but the festivities are in full swing with the beginning of the posadas. Mexicans celebrate the posadas every evening from December 16 to 24. They actually started as a Catholic novenario (nine days of religious observance based on the nine months that María carried Jesus in her womb). The posadas re-enact Mary and Joseph’s journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem in search of shelter; the word posada means “lodging” in Spanish.

Traditionally, a party is held each night in a neighborhood home. At dusk, guests gather outside the house with children who sometimes dress as shepherds, angels and even Mary and Joseph. An “angel” leads the procession, followed by Mary and Joseph or by participants carrying their images. The adults follow, carrying lighted candles.

The “pilgrims” sing a litany asking for shelter, and the hosts sing a reply, finally opening the doors to the guests and offering Mexican traditional Christmas dishes such as hot ponche, a drink of tejocotes (a Mexican fruit that tastes like an apricot/apple) guavas, oranges, sugar cane, and cinnamon mixed and simmered in hot water and served with rum or brandy; fried crisp Mexican cookies known as buñuelos, steaming hot tamales, a staple of the Mexican diet since pre-Hispanic days, and other festive foods.

Spanish priest and chronicler Bernardino de Sahagún observed that the first thing Aztec women did when preparing a festival was to make lots of tamales: tamales with amaranth leaves for the fire god Xiuhtecuhtli, tamales with beans and chiles for the jaguar god Tezcatlipoca, shrimp and chile sauce tamales for the ancient deity Huehuetéotl. Besides tamales stuffed with turkey meat, beans and chiles, the Aztecs used what they harvested from the shores of Lake Texcoco, including fish and frogs, to fill tamales. Sahagún tells us that pocket-gopher tamales were “always tasty, savory, of very pleasing odor.” The Maya also produced artistic, elaborate tamales; toasted squash seeds and flowers, meat, fish, fowl, and beans were all used as fillings. Deer meat, especially the heart, was favored for special offerings. Besides being steamed, tamales were roasted on the comal (grill) or baked in the pib, or pit oven.

Finally, after everybody ate and had fun, the party ends with a piñata. In some places, the last posada, held on Christmas Eve (December 24) is followed by midnight Catholic mass, a tradition that lives on in countless Mexican towns.

These are the lyrics to the traditional posada litany.  I have included the original Spanish lyrics and a widely accepted English translation that rimes with the tune. Now you can sing the litany in Spanish or in English at your next posada, or even better, have a bilingual posada and sing the litany twice.

Español		English
Outside   Singers	Inside   Response	Outside   Singers	Inside   Response
En el nombre del cielo os pido posada pues no puede andar mi esposa amada.	Aquí no es   mesón, sigan adelante Yo no debo abrir, no sea algún tunante.	In the name of Heaven I beg you for lodging, for she cannot walk my beloved wife.	This is not an inn so keep going I cannot open you may be a rogue.
No seas   inhumano, tennos caridad, que el Dios de los cielos te lo premiará.	Ya se pueden ir y no molestar porque si me enfado os voy a apalear.	Don’t be inhuman; Have mercy on us. The God of the heavens will reward you for it.	You can go on now and don’t bother us, because if I become annoyed I’ll give you a trashing.
Venimos rendidos desde Nazaret, yo soy carpintero de nombre José.	No me importa el   nombre, déjenme dormir, pues que yo les digo que no hemos de abrir.	We are worn out coming from Nazareth. I am a carpenter, Joseph by name.	I don’t care about your name: Let me sleep, because I already told you we shall not open up.
Posada te pide, amado casero, por sólo una noche la Reina del Cielo.	Pues si es una   reina quien lo solicita, ¿cómo es que de noche anda tan solita?	I’m asking you for lodging dear man of the house Just for one night for the Queen of Heaven.	Well, if it’s a queen who solicits it, why is it at night that she travels so alone?
Mi esposa es   María, es Reina del Cielo y madre va a ser del Divino Verbo.	¿Eres tú José? ¿Tu esposa es María? Entren, peregrinos, no los conocía.	My wife is Mary She’s the Queen of Heaven and she’s going to be the mother of the Divine Word.	Are you Joseph? Your wife is Mary? Enter pilgrims; I did not recognize you.
Dios pague,   señores, vuestra caridad, y que os colme el cielo de felicidad.	¡Dichosa la casa que alberga este día a la Virgen pura. La hermosa María!	May God pay, gentle folks, your charity, and thus heaven heap happiness upon you.	Blessed is the house that shelters this day the pure Virgin, the beautiful Mary.
Upon opening the doors at the final   stop, the tune changes, the pilgrims enter, and all sing these final verses   in unison:
Entren, Santos   Peregrinos, reciban este rincón, que aunque es pobre la morada, os la doy de corazón.		Enter, holy pilgrims, receive this corner, for though this dwelling is poor, I offer it with all my heart.
Oh, peregrina   agraciada, oh, bellísima María. Yo te ofrezco el alma mía para que tengáis   posada.		Oh, graced pilgrim, oh, most beautiful Mary. I offer you my soul so you may have lodging.
Humildes peregrinos Jesús, María y José, el alma doy por ellos, mi corazón también.		Humble pilgrims, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I give my soul for them And my heart as well.
Cantemos con   alegría todos al considerar que Jesús, José y María nos vinieron a honrar.		Let us sing with joy, all bearing in mind that Jesus, Joseph and Mary honor us by having come.

I wish you all a happy holiday season.  Please feel free to contribute to this post by sharing some holiday traditions from your home countries.

Some interpreters in the U.S. may not have an even playing field anymore.

Dear colleagues:

The issues discussed in this post apply to situations lived by many interpreters all over the world. Our profession is growing and fighting for recognition and prestige. For this reason, I think all interpreters should read this story, regardless of the country where they provide their services.

Every interpreter who has worked with the judicial system in the United States knows that court interpreting at the state-level is very different from providing our services at the federal judiciary. We also know that there are sharp differences on how each state procures court interpreters to meet their legal needs. Although most of them pay very little to the certified court interpreter, some pay “better” than others; some treat interpreters better, and some remain ignorant as of the role of the interpreter and its high relevance to the judicial process. This is all widely known; some court systems are infamous for treating the interpreter as an inconvenience rather than a constitutionally-mandated component of the judicial process (in criminal matters). This is not the issue that I want to discuss with you today. I want to talk about something else.

I would like to discuss with you the new scenario that our state-level independent court interpreters in the United States are facing with the enforcement of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (not a moment too soon) and the financial difficulties and budgetary cuts that many states are dealing with at this time. As many of you know, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act is a federal law that requires all government agencies, regardless of their level, to give access to all services to everyone (including those who do not speak English) if they want to continue to receive financial assistance from the federal government of the United States. This includes courthouses. Until a few years ago, only criminal cases had to meet this requirement because, unlike civil law cases, it was a constitutional mandate. This means that now state-level courts in the United States have to provide interpreting services for all civil and family law cases with essentially the same budget they had for criminal cases only. Many states have struggled with this change and most of them are trying to find the correct strategy to meet their legal mandate while at the same time living within their budget. Of course, there are some obvious solutions that state courts have chosen to ignore even though they would greatly relieve their interpreting case load. I have talked about this issue before and, undoubtedly, I will discuss it again in the future.

The facts show that many states are now more cautious as to where and how they will spend their money (or I should say, their constituents’ monies) This has generated a more “creative” approach in many places where the goal seems to be to comply with the federal mandate by simply providing a “warm body” next to the foreign language speaker at the lowest possible cost. As a result, there are now more qualified top-notch court interpreters with less work than ever before, while there is an unprecedented number of underqualified, mediocre interpreters working the states’ systems for a lower pay and more advantageous conditions for the state’s judiciary. There is plenty to talk about, but my motivation to write this post came from something I learned from a colleague who works as an independent court interpreter with the court system of one of the states in the U.S.

Apparently, just before the beginning of the state’s budget cycle, known in the United States as the fiscal year, this state sent out to all court-certified independent interpreters within the state, a professional services contract that had to be executed and returned before the first day of said fiscal year. The contract was a multi-page document that spelled out in great detail the interpreter’s responsibilities to the courts. It also contained a clause on fee payments that indicated the state’s official fee and some other conditions. Among them, there was a minimum fee guaranteed to all interpreters who accepted an assignment with the state courts. The contract showed two different scenarios. Under the first one, and interpreter could be called in to work at the courthouse for two hours, and if the case or cases were resolved before the time was up, the interpreter would be paid for the guaranteed time. The second scenario operated identically, with the exception that it referred to more complex cases and for that reason the minimum guaranteed fee was of four hours. This seemed to be a fair provision that in fact incorporated into this contract a widely accepted practice followed in that state for many years. The problem was on the next sentence of the same paragraph. The contract established that if the cases the interpreter was called for were to end before the minimum guaranteed period was up, the interpreter had to remain at the courthouse in case something else would happen and interpreting services were required. Up to here everything was fine, but immediately after, the contract indicated that said interpreter could be sent to another courthouse in the state to work off the rest of the minimum guaranteed fee. The interpreter had the right to refuse the second assignment, but in that case he would be penalized with a pay cut as he would only be paid for the actual interpreting time, not for the guaranteed time. In other words, the “guaranteed fee” did not guarantee anything, as the interpreter would be at the mercy of the court who would become, for all practical purposes, the employer, because only employers can dispose of their employees time that way. A client cannot control the time of an independent contractor.

I immediately thought of two scary scenarios: Just imagine for a moment that an interpreter with a sick child agrees to work for two hours at her neighborhood courthouse. She needs the income, so she figures out her schedule, gets a babysitter for a little over two hours, and goes to work from 9 to 11 in the morning. All of a sudden, the cases she was called in for do not go to a hearing because the cases are continued to a future date (this happens every day in all courthouses of the United States) It is only 10 in the morning, so she reports back to the interpreter coordinator; she tells her what happened, and sits down waiting for possible cases between 10 and 11 o’clock when she is going home to her sick child. Unfortunately, the interpreter coordinator has other things in mind and asks her to go to a different courthouse 40 miles away. The interpreter objects and claims that going to that other location will take about 30 minutes one-way. The coordinator states that the 2-hour minimum is not over yet. The interpreter explains that she was counting on working until 11 in the morning, and going to the second location would result in an additional 60 to 90 minutes. The coordinator explains that the interpreter would be compensated for her travel time at the reimbursement rate. The interpreter declines the assignment and the coordinator explains that due to the refusal, she will be paid for one hour of services, not two. This could also happen to another interpreter who has other professional engagements (not with the court) immediately after the time she was hired for. You see? The “guaranteed fee” is not such a thing. The court does not understand that interpreters sell their time and from the moment they commit to an assignment they cannot accept anything else during that period of time.

The same contract indicates that the state shall pay the interpreter for the services rendered within 30 days from the time of filing of the invoice; unfortunately, it also states that the interpreter cannot add any late payment interest or penalties when the courts don’t pay on time. Obviously this turns this contract into a one-sided document with no contractual value but for one of the parties: the courthouse. Interpreters are barred from protecting themselves as they cannot pursue compensation for the damages caused by late or non-payment.

Apparently, this contract was exclusively crafted by the courts, and the interpreters did not have an opportunity to seek legal advice and representation before signing the document. Moreover, there is an advisory body for interpreting matters in this state where independent interpreters are a huge minority since all court players are represented separately: judges, administrators and staff interpreters. In other words, the interests of the state will always have a majority of votes in this advisory body. Obviously, something is wrong with this picture. I am not saying that it is exclusively the courts’ fault, because the interpreters needed to be more assertive. And this takes me to the real root of the problem: A silent careless interpreting community dealing with a court administration that wants to protect its interests (as it should) and will take everything it can as long as the interpreters do nothing about it.

Those of you who have met me in person or regularly read my blog know that I am not in favor of protectionism in any way, shape, or form; you have probably read my opinion regarding “equal assignments for all interpreters” and protection to those who are not up to speed with new technologies. I am totally against these ideas. I do believe that it is up to the individual interpreter to do whatever it takes in order to secure more work with the courts or with any other client. You also know that I am not a big fan of working for the court systems, especially at the state level, because they pay very little and often do not treat interpreters like professionals. The best and permanent solution to this problem, from the interpreter’s point of view, would be to leave the court work and do some other interpretation (including out of court jobs where interpreters can negotiate their professional fee with the attorneys) but for those who do not want to quit the courts, my suggestion would be to seek legal advice and negotiate before signing a contract, to use their professional associations to educate the interpreters and perhaps collectively retain the services of an attorney to look over their interests, not the courts’. I am not saying that professional associations should turn into labor unions, nothing like that; all I am suggesting is that besides continuing education, a member directory, and social events, these organizations should look into these issues not to improve working conditions, but to improve the level and quality of the professional service provided by its members. By doing this, interpreters’ working conditions would be indirectly improved as this is a needed requirement to raise the quality of the professional service. Finally, independent court interpreters must consider the court as a client, not an employer. Dear friends and colleagues, the courts are our clients, and they are not even our best clients; even if you get most of your work from them, they are not the best-paying client; therefore they are not your best client. To consider a client as the best because of how much work they send your way instead of because of how well they pay would be like saying that Wal-Mart is a great clothes store because of its volume, when you have many other businesses that sell better products of higher quality. I invite you to post your comments on this issue, and to share your experiences of what you have perceived as an abusive behavior by a state court; and remember, no names or specifics on the courts or people please.

A bad combination: The interpreter’s ego and sense of denial.

Dear colleagues:

We all know that most interpreters are very gifted and well-educated people, but due to the individual characteristics required for the job, and because of the lifestyle needed to be a top-tier interpreter, we interpreters are also very complicated. Not everyone is able to stand up in front of a crowd of thousands, and many would not be capable of speaking from a booth or a TV studio to millions of people around the world. It takes self-confidence, self-esteem, and courage to do it. These are the qualities of the professional interpreter, and they could also turn into our flaws or defects. All interpreters have a big ego, some can control it better, but the fact is that I have never met an interpreter without one. An ego is a good thing to have, and it comes in handy when interpreting for a dignitary or negotiating a contract. Yes, it is true that sometimes it jumps over the set limits and we have to reel it back. We all know it, we all have experienced it, and for this reason, we are all pretty much tolerant of the occasional diva explosion from our colleagues. We are grown-ups, we are professionals, and we all know how to live with it. The problem is when a colleague has an ego the size of the Sears Tower, she does nothing to control it, and this attitude affects the professional relationship with other colleagues, and gets on the way of the delivery of a quality professional interpreting service. Add to this mix the self-denial often caused by the same ego, and then you have an impossible situation that we all have lived through at one time during our careers.

I once worked with a colleague who at the time was more experienced than me. She was one of those pioneers of the profession who empirically became a good interpreter, in her particular market, which is different from mine as it is in another country, she was well-known and sought-after by some of the biggest names in the interpreting industry. She was widely respected, and in her old age she was also feared because of her influence on the market. She could ruin the future of an interpreter who was trying to access the highest levels with a simple phone call or comment.

In the past, I had worked at the same events she had worked, but until this occasion, I had never worked with her as a team. I was very impressed with the way she interacted with the colleagues, the organizers of the event, the speakers, and the media. It was evident that she knew her craft. I still remember thinking what a great experience this was going to be for me as the younger interpreter in the team (not a very common occurrence nowadays). My expectations collapsed little by little once we were in the booth. The first thing that shocked me was her total ignorance of modern technology. She had no computer skills at all, she did not know what a Power Point was, and complained about the interpreter console because “…it had too many unnecessary bells and whistles that are never used in the booth”. Of course, as the senior interpreter, she started the speech. I was determined to be a good booth partner, to help her with all the “technology” and to be ready with words, terms, water, anything she would need during her rendition. I was paying more attention to her work than I had for a long time, and I was so disappointed. Her speech was choppy as she seemed to get distracted very easily, soon she lagged way behind the speaker, and when she reached the point of no return because of her distance from the source language speech, she just skipped parts of the presentation; some of them crucial to the rest of the speech. The only notes she passed me were complaints about the sound; she claimed it was very low, but in reality it was extremely loud, you could even hear it without the earphones. When she finished her shift and handed me the microphone, she told me that she was going to step outside to talk to the sound technician because it was “impossible to hear the speaker.” I had no problem hearing everything he said during my shift. At the break she informed me that she was very upset because the equipment was bad, the technician had not fixed the problem and he was rude, and that she was going to look for the agency representative to ask him to tell the speakers to speak louder so they can be heard in the booth. I was very uncomfortable with the situation. When she went to look for the people she needed to find to formally complain, I grabbed a cup of coffee with the other Spanish interpreters who were working other rooms during the same event. One of them was a colleague from my market who I know very well. She had worked many times with this “living-legend” when she was at the peak of her career and also recently. I thought she would be a good person to talk to before I decided what to do next. After she listened to my story, nodding in agreement most of the time, she clearly told me that it would be better to leave things as they were. She stated that next to this interpreter, truly an “institution of the interpreting profession”, my credibility was zero, and that the only thing I would accomplish was to be blacklisted from future events, and nothing else. “Don’t you think that all of these colleagues feel exactly as you do? They all do, but they know there’s nothing we can do about it. Just forget it, do your best, and next time she will be dead or you will have another booth partner.” I followed the advice and did nothing.

My colleague was right, I returned the following year, and although the diva was there, I had a different partner in the booth. I felt bad for this new young woman who was in the booth with her, but that was not my problem this time around.

A few years later I received an offer to work as an interpreter of some business negotiations that would require a lot of consecutive interpreting, as part of the job would consist of inspecting mines, manufacturing plants, and exposition pavilions. The job was to last ten days. Because it was interesting, challenging, and well-paid, I immediately accepted the assignment without even asking who would be my colleague for the job. Of course, it was her! The only difference is that now this was about five years later and it would be consecutive interpretation in crowded places where it would be difficult to hear and be heard.

The assignment was a disaster. She could not hear anything and was constantly asking for repetitions to the point of making the parties lose their concentration. Her consecutive was non-existing; after the speaker uttered three words, she would jump in the middle of a statement doing a simultaneous rendition without equipment and with a voice so weak that nobody could hear it. People started to complain because there was a big contrast between her “consecutive” rendition full of requests for repetitions, and constantly stopping the speaker after just a few words, all in a voice so soft that nobody (including me just a few inches away from her) could hear. My consecutive was delivered without interruptions or repetitions and in a powerful voice. The worst part was that she was leaving out of her rendition many important details and she was giving the wrong figures, amounts, prices, etc.

This is when I decided to talk to her. This was five years after the first experience when I decided to remain silent, and during these period of time I had worked plenty of times in this market and was now well-known and respected by colleagues, promoters and agencies. In other words, I felt more confident of my share of the market than five years earlier. I also knew that if we didn’t do something the negotiations would collapse and the project would end in disaster.

That evening I invited my colleague to have a drink at the bar of the hotel. After some small talk, I spoke before she started complaining about everything, I told her that her consecutive had not been complete and that the clients had complained to me that she was interrupting them all the time in order to “interpret” what had been said. I told her that it was very difficult to hear her because she was speaking very softly without making any effort to project her voice. I even told her that her consecutive rendition was always in a softer voice than her normal conversational voice, and that this could be understood as lack of confidence because she did not remember what the speaker had just said in the source language. Finally, I asked her if she was willing to at least try to do the assignment as we had been asked to do it (consecutively) in which case I would do everything I could do to help her, or if she was not comfortable doing so, I asked her if it would be better for me to request a different interpreter for the rest of the job. She immediately became very angry. She blamed it all on me, and accused me of speaking very loud to contrast her more “feminine voice” and turn all the clients against her. She called me a liar and said that her consecutive rendition was impeccable and better than mine. She even claimed that I could not hear the speakers either, but since I was too chicken to complain, I had been inventing half of what I had interpreted. She got up and before storming out of the bar, she told me that she had never been disrespected like that before, that she was staying, and that she was going to ask for me to be taken off the assignment. After she left I was very upset and frustrated by her self-denial boosted by her gargantuan ego, but at the same time I felt a sense of relief: I had made my peace. The agency (and the client) would now decide if I had to leave the assignment. I remember thinking that I did not want to leave, I was enjoying the subject matter and wanted to see how these negotiations were going to end, but at the same time, If I had to leave I would still get paid for the entire assignment, and I had set the record straight with my colleague the diva.

The following morning I got a phone call from the agency informing me that my colleague had had a personal problem overnight and unfortunately she had left the assignment. I stayed on the job until the end and I got another colleague who was very easy to work with and had an excellent consecutive rendition. Months later I learned from another colleague that the client had sent a quality evaluation to the agency complaining about my diva colleague and praising the services rendered by the substitute colleague and me. I also saw on the diva’s online profile that now she does not do consecutive interpretation assignments. I have run into the diva interpreter a few times after this incident, mainly at interpreter gatherings; sometimes she politely greets me, and sometimes she ignores me pretending that I am not there. I now ask you to share with the rest of us some experience that you had with an interpreter whose ego was out of control or was in total denial.