Legends and stories for the season.

Dear Colleagues:

It is Halloween time in the United States and many other places. Whether a native tradition, or an imported commercial scam, the fact is that Halloween is now a part of many lives.  In past years, I have used this space to talk about the history of Halloween, horror movies, and even monsters and ghouls.  This time I leave to others the task of looking for the links between Halloween and the Day of the Death, and I will not even bother to refute those who are going around saying that the Mexican ceremonies from Michoacán state have their roots in Aztec culture when the Aztecs were not even from that part of the country.  This year I decided to share with you five of my favorite ghost stories and spooky legends from the Spanish speaking world. There are plenty more, including many stories from the rest of the world that I have also made my favorites and I will probably share in the years to come, but for now, please let me tell you the following stories and legends, so go ahead, dim the lights, get under the blanket, and prepare yourselves to be spooked:

Ánimas Mountain (El Monte de las Ánimas. Spain)

The story tells us that a long time ago, during the Arab occupation of Spain, the King of Castile asked the Knights Templar to come to Soria, a village in his kingdom and help him defend the city. Unfortunately, this made the local aristocrats angry as they thought that they were brave and skilled enough to defend the kingdom. The situation got worse because the Knight Templars controlled Ánimas Mountain, a place reach with game and a hunters’ paradise. As a result, the noble Castilians had to find their food somewhere else. They did not succeed and lived a life of austerity while the knights were hunting and enjoying the abundance of the mountain. Soon, both groups met in fierce battle that left Ánimas Mountain full of corpses that were eaten by the wolves. The king intervened and banned them all from going back to the mountain turning it into a desolated sight with a decaying Knights Templar chapel.  It is said that ever since, on the eve of the Day of the Dead, the chapel’s bell can be heard, and the souls of the warriors come back to the mountain wearing their torn battle suits and leaving their grim footprints behind. For many years people were cautioned not to go to the mountain on the Day of the Dead’s eve.

Then, many years later, Alonso, a young aristocrat from Soria, who was in love with Beatriz, a beautiful young woman who was visiting the village, and staying at the Count of Alcudiel’s palace, announced that she was going to leave the village and live in France. Alonso, devastated, confessed his love and told her of his fear of losing her forever. To this confession, Beatriz replied that in her kingdom there was a tradition where the gentleman would give the lady a garment or a personal item to pledge his love. Immediately, Alonso gave her the brooch that held the feather to his cap, and asked her what she was going to give him in return. She told him that she would pledge her blue ribbon. She looked for it, and realized that she had lost in on the mountain earlier that day, so she asked him to go to Ánimas Mountain and retrieve it.  Alonso admitted that he was afraid to go to the mountain that night, but she did not change her mind. Finally full of fear, Alonso got on his horse and off he went in search of the blue ribbon.

As the night got darker, Beatriz heard noises, a bell, and horrible screams coming from the mountain until she finally fell asleep. The following morning she woke up to the screams of nobles and commoners alike. They were yelling that young Alonso had died on the mountain the previous night. She got out of bed to go outside, and that was the moment when she saw a torn bloody blue ribbon on her bed. When the servants reached her chambers to tell her of Alonso’s death, they found Beatriz dead; her face had with a horrible expression: She had been scared to death!

From that day on, the legend tells that on every Day of the Dead’s eve, the skeletons of many warriors can be seen fighting all over the mountain, and if you pay special attention, you can see the figure of a pale barefooted bloody woman yelling and screeching around Alonso’s grave.

The House of Don Juan Manuel (La casa de don Juan Manuel. Mexico)

There was a house in 16^th Century Mexico City, the colonial capital of New Spain. It’s address: 94 Uruguay Street. It was the home of Don Juan Manuel de Solórzano, a wealthy man who was married to a beautiful woman who happened to be much younger than him. Don Juan Manuel was very jealous and he firmly believed that his wife was cheating on him. To find out who was her lover, he invoked the devil and made a deal: Don Juan Manuel gifted his soul to the devil in exchange for the name of his wife’s lover. Once the deal was sealed with Satan, Don Juan Manuel learned that his wife had been loyal to him all along, but it was too late.  The house still exists in Mexico City and it is presently used as an events ballroom. It is said by many that at night you can see a man dressed in 16^th Century fashion who paces in front of the main entrance and approaches those who go by the house and asks them the same question: “What time is it?” and when the answer happens to be: “eleven o’clock”, Don Juan Manuel just answers back: “How fortunate is the man who knows the time of his death”.

La Tunda (Colombia)

Do not confuse the name with the Spanish word for a beating. It has nothing to do with it. It is said that for centuries, a horrific creature has inhabited the forests of Colombia’s Pacific coast. This monster has an insatiable appetite for human flesh and it prefers small children. Hunters and their families can be tricked by this creature at night when it takes the shape of a beautiful woman to trap men, and imitates the voice of a child’s mother to lure them into the forest where it holds them prisoners in a cave until it eats them one by one. The legend says that in order to keep them from running away, the creature feeds them seafood with special powers that paralyze the body leaving the victims totally helpless.  Many say that even now, especially in the Chocó region of Colombia, you can hear this motherly voice calling for its victims at night.

The Legend of Caá-porá (Paraguay)

There is a giant with a huge head who lives in the Guaraní Mountains of Paraguay. This huge being can only be seen in the most inaccessible parts of the mountains, but those who have encountered it, claim that he smokes a macabre pipe made of a human skull. Caá-porá will not harm those who go to the mountains to hunt for their own food, sometimes he even guides their dogs to the prey. However, this giant is ruthless with hunters who go to the mountains for the sole purpose of hurting the animals. Those hunters will face Caá-porá who will devour the animals before the hunters can get to them, spoiling their hunting trip. On other occasions, this big-headed giant can confuse the dogs so they cannot find any game, and kill the hunters to eat them.  It is said that those who have escaped the giant and made it back to civilization, come back under a spell and are never the same. Now you know, so the next time you go to the Guaraní Mountains and run into a hunter who may look bewitched, dozing or sleepy, you will have met a victim who escaped from Caá-porá.

Súpay (Argentina)

Also known as Zúpay, is a devil known since the days of the Incas. Súpay lives in the northern and central regions of Argentina in an underground cave named Salamanca. His home was originally called Supaihuasin (hell in Quichua).  This devil dresses all in black with a broad hat, gold and silver ornaments, spurs, a dagger, and a guitar. On Tuesday and Friday nights, it rides its horse until it finds some unsuspecting travelers. He asks them to dinner, and after hours of food and drinking, and once Súpay has entertained its guests with his guitar, he proposes a deal to his victims: their souls in exchange for temporary fortune and reaches.  Súpay followers visit his underground cave to learn his black magic and other means to hurt people.

I did my part to put you on the Halloween mood, now I ask you to please share with us other chilling legends or stories from your countries.

“Get an interpreter for that hearing, and try to spend as little as possible”.

Dear colleagues:

Every time I read an article about court interpreting, look at your social media posts, or have a face to face conversation with a court interpreter, I cannot help but notice how the working conditions constantly deteriorate. For some time we have witnessed how the court interpreting system of the United Kingdom was completely destroyed and our colleagues had to courageously fight back so the rest of the world knew what had happened in their country. Time continues to run, and nothing has been done to improve that system now run by an entity whose greatest achievement was to sink the quality of interpreting services to an unimaginable low. We have witnessed the difficult times that our colleagues who want to do court interpreting face in Spain. We have heard many stories of court interpreters around the world having to fight for a professional fee, a professional work environment, and respect to the profession.

The situation in the United States is also very sad. It is true that the enforcement of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act has left little choice to the states. Now, state-level courts that want to continue to receive federal funds must provide interpreting services to all non-English speakers who need to have access to the justice system. The new demand for court interpreters beyond criminal cases has “inspired” many court administrators and chief judges to act in new and more creative ways to satisfy the requirement of having an interpreter next to the non-English speaker, even when the quality of this professional service is at best doubtful. To this day, there are jurisdictions where the question is: Does a warm body fulfill the legal requirement of providing interpreter services? Sadly, in some cases the answer seems to be “maybe”.

But the state courts want to comply with the federal mandate, and it seems that some of them will stop at nothing in order to achieve their goal. A popular formula was born: “Get an interpreter for that hearing and try to spend as little as possible”. The origin of this strategy is not clear, but it is obvious that this solution was not conceived by an interpreter. This is not even the brainchild of an administrator who at least has a basic knowledge of the interpreting profession; moreover, this doctrine has been embraced by some federal level courts as well. Let me explain.

Some court administrators have implemented a fee reduction. Today, some interpreters get paid less for their travel time to and from the place where they will render professional services; they get a lower fee, less compensation per traveled mile (kilometer elsewhere in the world) no reimbursement for tolls and bridges, and other very crafty ways that some courts have devised to pay less for interpreting services.

Other courts have increased the level of “scrutiny” and now watch over the court interpreters’ shoulder while they are doing their job; not the way a client observes the work of a doctor, a lawyer, or any professional individual, but the way a person watches over the performance of the guys who dry your car when you take it to the car wash. Many times this breathing on your neck type of scrutiny is enforced by adding paperwork and bureaucratic requirements to the fee payment process. To the interpreters, this means more time spent in the payment process, while making the same money than before the new requirements were in place. They are effectively making less money than before.

Of course there are also courts that now pay a lower fee during the contracted time if the interpreter’s lips are not moving: They pay a partial fee for the break time and travel time, even though the interpreters, who sell their time, have allocated those hours, or minutes, to that court as a client. Now some courts are tossing high fives at each other because they paid the interpreter a full fee for 45 minutes of work and a reduced fee for the 15 minutes in between cases when the interpreter did not interpret because the judge had to go to the bathroom.

And there is more: some jurisdictions have removed themselves from the payment process in those cases when, due to a possible conflict of interest, the court assigns a particular case to a private independent defense attorney, who is a member of a panel of lawyers, who can be appointed to these cases in exchange for a fee that is paid by the judiciary. This jurisdictions do not accept the interpreters’ invoices anymore; they now require the panel attorney to process the interpreter’s invoice and payment, generating two very sad effects: (1) Sometimes, the interpreter will have to wait a long time to get paid because their payment processing is not a top priority to the lawyer, and (2) It will help to keep alive the idea that interpreters are second-class officers of the court who do not deserve the court’s trust, because it is clear that these jurisdictions opted for a system where the attorney will need to access the court’s computer system to process interpreters’ payments, which is “preferable” over a system where interpreters would have to be granted that same access to the system. Why? Because it is too much of a risk to take? You can arrive to your own conclusions, but the fact is that this policy is very demeaning.

My friends, when you see and hear about all these policy changes you have to wonder: As these new strategies were discussed and adopted, where were the court staff interpreters, and the judges, and the administrators who know what interpreting is about? And once they were implemented, why did the freelancers continue to work under these terrible conditions? I now invite you to comment on this policy changes, other rules you may have noticed somewhere else, and the reason why these changes are being implemented with so little opposition.

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.

Is Cinco de Mayo an American holiday?

Dear colleagues:

Cinco de Mayo (May 5^th.) is perhaps the biggest mystery of the American holiday calendar. It is an enigma for almost everyone in the United States: Native citizens with no Mexican background wonder why, as a nation, we celebrate another country’s holiday; Hispanic-Americans are puzzled by the significance of the date; Mexicans living in the United States can hardly believe that American society commemorates a date of their national calendar that is practically non-existent in Mexico; and the rest of the world, people who live outside the United States and non-Mexican Hispanics who live in the United States, find the festivities on this date quite strange.

Historically, on May 5, 1862 the Mexican army faced the French Imperial army of Napoleon III. The French had disembarked in Veracruz harbor along with the British and Spanish almost a year earlier. Their purpose was to collect heavy debts owed by the Mexican government to these three nations after Mexican President Benito Juarez declared a moratorium in which all foreign debt payments would be suspended for two years. Mexico had incurred in those debts during a Civil War motivated in part by the expropriation of all church assets ordered by Juarez. Eventually Mexico negotiated with France and Spain and they withdrew, but Napoleon III decided to take advantage of the American Civil War and take this opportunity to establish an empire that would look after the interests of France. The French move was seen favorably by the Confederate army as Napoleon III supported the existence of a slave state.

On May 5 the French army approached the city of Puebla which was defended by the Mexican armed forces under the command of General Ignacio Zaragoza. The Mexicans resisted the attack from the forts of Loreto and Guadalupe. After a bloody battle against the better-trained French soldiers, the Mexican army, aided by the machete-armed northern Puebla Zacapoaxtla Indians, prevailed. The Mexican victory was shorted-lived as the French army regrouped and returned a year later when they took over Puebla and eventually Mexico City, establishing the Mexican Empire under Emperor Maximilian I from the Austrian House of Habsburg-Lorraine.

Although President Benito Juarez encouraged the observance of the May 5^th. battle as a national holiday, the event is not part of the official holiday calendar. Only the State of Puebla (and parts of the neighboring State of Veracruz) observes this date as a local official holiday. On May 5, the rest of the Mexican society goes about their daily lives as on any other day. It is understandable that Mexico does not celebrate this date as a big holiday; it is not their independence day (Mexico’s Independence Day is September 16), the stories that spread right after the May 5^th. battle describing how a handful of Mexican soldiers and Zacapoaxtla Indians had defeated a much larger well-equipped French army were quickly discredited by the truth of what happened: in reality the French had an army that was six-thousand strong, while the Mexicans had a four-thousand men army; hardly a handful battling an imperial army; but more importantly: The Mexicans won the battle but lost the war. Moreover, it was not until April 2, 1867 that Mexico recovered the city of Puebla in a decisive battle that eventually defeated Maximilian’s empire. This was the real victorious battle of Puebla; unfortunately for Mexican history, on April 2 the victorious army that beat the French was led by General Porfirio Díaz who later became a hated political figure because of his hold on the Mexican presidency for 32 years (inexplicably, or perhaps due to a manipulated “official history,” to this day Mexicans still consider him as the great dictator despite the fact that he was followed by a dictatorship that was twice as long: The 70 years of the PRI government)

Now, let’s get back to the United States in 1862, specifically California where there was a large first and second generation Mexican population. Keep in mind that until 1848 when California and other western territories became part of the United States by the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, officially entitled “Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Limits and Settlement between the United States of America and the Mexican Republic”, they were part of Mexico; their citizens had fought against Spain during the Mexican War of Independence only three decades before, and many of them became victims of discrimination, embezzlement, and forced labor by their fellow Anglo-American citizens. Most of these individuals did not speak English, were Catholic, and almost all of them were against slavery. In other words, it was in their best interest to see the Confederate army defeated in the American Civil War. Therefore, as Hayes-Bautista, a UCLA professor of medicine describes during an interview about his book: “El Cinco de Mayo: An American Tradition” that when he was researching for his book, he reviewed the Spanish language newspapers of California and Oregon from the 1880s, he noticed that the American Civil War and Cinco de Mayo Battle were intertwined: “…I’m seeing now in the minds of the Spanish-reading public in California that they were basically looking at one war with two fronts, one against the Confederacy in the east, and the other against the French in the south… In Mexico today, Cinco de Mayo means that the Mexican army defeated the French army,” he continued. “…In California and Oregon, the news was interpreted as finally that the army of freedom and democracy won a big one against the army of slavery and elitism; and the fact that those two armies had to meet in Mexico was immaterial because they were fighting for the same issues…” (Hayes-Bautista interview with CNN) In early spring 1862 the Union army was unable to move against the Confederates, so this victory in Puebla was a welcomed sign by these Hispanics. Another significant aspect of the Cinco de Mayo battle is that the commander of the Mexican armed forces in Puebla, General Ignacio Zaragoza, was born on March 24, 1829 in a town by the name of Bahía del Espíritu Santo. The town’s name was later changed to Goliad, and it is located in Texas. That is right: The hero of the Cinco de Mayo battle was a Texan! At the time of his birth the town was in Mexico where it was part of the State of Coahuila y las Tejas, but by the time of the battle, its name was Goliad, a name given by the Texans as an anagram of the hero of the Mexican Independence: Hidalgo, omitting the silent “H”

The Mexican population in the United States identified with Zaragoza, he was one of them who had to leave Mexico and come to Texas if he wanted to visit his hometown. The Cinco de Mayo victory was then memorialized by a network of Hispanic groups in California, Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona called “juntas patrióticas mejicanas.” (Mexican Patriotic Assemblies). While they celebrated the Cinco de Mayo victory every year with parades and other festivities, Mexico continued to be at war with France for another five years. Eventually, the meaning of the holiday changed over time becoming the mythical story of David versus Goliath, and later embodying the U.S.-Mexico unity during World War II and the Chicano Power movement of the 1960s.

On recent times this date has been adopted by business people all over the United States and many parts of the world and transformed into a festival, the second largest in the United States just behind St. Patrick’s Day, where people eat Mexican-American food and drink Mexican beer and tequila. Although most Mexicans and Mexican-Americans do not know the history of Cinco de Mayo, despite the fact that many of them do not even know why they get together, have parades and listen to Mexican music on that day, they all seem to share the feeling that this is a uniquely American celebration that has extended to all Hispanics in the United States, Mexican or not, natives and foreigners, and even non-Hispanics; because every year for one day, all Americans celebrate Hispanic food, culture and traditions with pride. It has even reached the White House where President George W. Bush, a former border-state governor with Mexican-American family members, who also speaks Spanish, started a tradition of inviting Hispanics to the White House for this celebration. Because of the increasing importance and participation of Hispanics in America’s mainstream, President Barack Obama has continued the celebration, and it looks like it is here to stay, because after all, Cinco de Mayo is not a Mexican holiday, it is an American celebration. I invite you to please share your thoughts about this unique celebration and its significance in the history and culture of the United States.

What we learned as interpreters in 2013.

Dear Colleagues,

Now that 2013 is coming to an end and we are working towards a fruitful and meaningful 2014, 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 2013 was no exception. I personally grew up professionally 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 held its very successful first conference in London England, Asetrad had a magnificent anniversary event in Toledo Spain, from the evidence so far it looks like the new grading system for the U.S. federal court interpreter certification worked fine, 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, 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 pseudo-interpreters trying to “take over” the market by charging laughable fees under shameful working conditions in exchange for miserable services.

During 2013 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 interpretation and translation books first published in 2013 that I read, and of course working in the booth, at the courthouse, the formal dinners, and the recording studio.

This year I had the honor to see how several of my students became federally certified court interpreters in the United States, and I had the fortune to present before conference audiences in different countries.  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 National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators’ (NAJIT) Annual Conference in St. Louis, Missouri, the Spanish Association of Translators, Proof-readers and Interpreters’ (ASETRAD) Conference in Toledo, Spain, the International Association of Professional Translators and Interpreters’ (IAPTI) Annual Conference in London, England, and the Mexican Translators Organization’s (OMT) conference in Guadalajara Mexico where I had the pleasure to attend the magnificent International Book Fair.  My only regret was that for professional obligations I had to cancel my trip to San Antonio Texas to attend the American Translators Association’s (ATA) Annual Conference.  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 and catching up with good friends. 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.

Is it Spanish or Castilian?

Dear colleagues:

Today I decided to write about something we all know and many of us are sick and tired of: The eternal question that we as interpreters are constantly asked by the agency, the client, and the lay person: Is it Spanish or is it Castilian?

If you are a Spanish interpreter, translator, or even a native Speaker you will understand either term as one that is used to refer to the language spoken by the majority of the people who live in Spain, Latin America, Equatorial Guinea, and some parts of North America.  Of course, you will have a preference for one or the other depending where you grew up or learned the language, but you will understand (and occasionally use) both terms.  The problem is that when we are working as Spanish interpreters, sometimes we are asked by the agency or by the client to “speak Castilian instead of Spanish” or we may even be rejected from an assignment because we are Spanish interpreters and they are looking for a “Castilian interpreter.”

To set the record straight we should tell our inquisitor or prospective client that historically Spanish is a Romance language that comes from Latin, and it is called Spanish as it comes from españón in Old Spanish, which most likely comes from the Vulgar Latin hispani­ōne or hispaniolus, because the Romans referred to Spain as Hispania.  Then we explain that Castile is a word derived from the Latin castella (castle-land) that comes from the also Latin term castrum (fortress or castle) That it was a border region of Spain next to the Moorish territories. That at the end of the Middle Ages, with the assistance of the Kingdom of Aragon, the Kingdom of Castile expelled these Moorish rulers from the peninsula. In those days, before Spain was a single country, the people from this kingdom were called Castilians and the language they spoke, which evolves from the old Castilian, was known as Castilian. With time, and the expansion of the Spanish crown in the world, including the Americas, the entire region was called Spain in England, Espagne in France, and the non-Portuguese people from the peninsular region and their language became known as Spanish.  In the Americas the native speakers picked their favorite term to refer to the same language as well.  Some regions, like the Viceroyalty of New Spain (present Mexico and parts of the United States) preferred the term Spanish as they were part of the Spanish monarchy; others, like the Captaincy General de Guatemala (present Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica, and parts of Mexico) chose Castilian thinking of the original rulers who sponsored the first expeditions and their representatives in the new world, who were from Castile.

In Spain, the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) used the term Castilian in the past, but since 1923 its dictionary has used the term Spanish when referring to the language spoken by more than 300 million people around the world. In fact, its dictionary is called Dictionary of the Spanish Language (diccionario de la lengua española) The language academies from the other Spanish-speaking countries, including the United States, are grouped under the Association of Spanish Language Academies, which participated in the creation of the Diccionario Panhispánico de Dudas, a dictionary that encompasses mistakes and doubts in Spanish whose production was agreed upon by all 22 national language academies.  The dictionary states the following: “…it is preferable to keep the term Castilian to refer to the Romance language born in the Kingdom of Castile during the Middle Ages, or to the dialect of Spanish currently spoken in that region…” (Diccionario panhispánico de dudas. 2005)

Therefore, the official recommendation is to use Spanish over Castilian.

In Spain, the constitution states that “Castilian is the official language of the State…” In reality, multilingual regions tend to refer to the language as Castilian to tell it apart from their own native languages. Monolingual regions tend to use the term Spanish when referring to the language they speak.  In Latin America and elsewhere, the constitutions of these countries use the term Castilian: Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Paraguay, Peru, and Venezuela. These other nations use the term Spanish in their constitution: Costa Rica, Equatorial Guinea, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama. No term is mentioned in the constitution of: Argentina, Chile, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Mexico and Uruguay.

The reality is that it really does not matter which term is used to refer to the third most spoken language in the world, and the second most widely spoken on earth. The important issue we need to understand is that when non-Spanish speakers ask us to interpret Castilian instead of Spanish, they are not talking about the language we speak because they do not know that there is only one Spanish (or Castilian) They are trying to tell us that they want a “universal” more general Spanish (although some of us do not believe there is such a thing and I will address it on another blog entry) They are trying to reach more people and they do not know how. It can also mean that they want the interpreter to stay away from Spanglish (a mix of Spanish and English) and Portuñol (a mix of Portuguese and Spanish) and because of the people they have worked with in the past, they do not know that by hiring a professional capable interpreter they do not need to worry about these issues. So the next time somebody asks you to interpret in Castilian or rejects you from speaking Spanish instead of Castilian, take a deep breath, explain as much, or as little, as you think necessary, and assure the client that you will interpret in Castilian.  I ask you to please share your ideas as to what to do to educate the client about this topic while taking the appropriate business measures and steps to keep the client.  Please do not write about why it is better to call it Spanish or Castilian.

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 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.

The First Interpreter in the New World.

Dear Colleagues,

As interpreters and translators we know that every job we do is very important and some of it will even transcend.  Today I want to focus on the pioneer of our profession in the Americas.  491 years ago, on a day like today: August 13, 1521 the Spaniards finally defeated the Aztec Empire and conquered Tenochtitlan where they founded what we know now as Mexico City.  At first glance, it seems that this incredible feat was accomplished by a handful of conquistadors and a fearful Aztec emperor who considered them gods.

Modern research has discarded that version of history as we now know that it was a more complex succession of events that led to the fall of the most powerful nation west of the Atlantic Ocean.  A big part of the outcome, if not the most important part, was brought about by a native woman of a lower-noble family from the Aztec Empire frontier, now the Mexican State of Veracruz.  Her birth name was Malinalli, the name of one of the 20 days of the Aztec month, but as she grew up, she became known as Malinalli Tenépal. The Náhuatl word Tenépal means “a person who speaks a lot with enthusiasm and fluency.”  Sounds familiar?

When Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés arrived in what is now Tabasco México and defeated the Chontal Mayans, she was among the slave women he received as a present.  The Spaniards noticed right away that Malinalli, or Marina as the conquistadors named her, spoke the local Chontal Maya language and her birth tongue: Náhuatl, the language spoken by the Aztecs.  It became very clear that this girl, probably around 19 years of age, was very sharp, very pretty by all accounts, and had a gift for learning foreign languages.  At the beginning, while she learned Spanish, Cortés used her as his Chontal Maya <> Náhuatl interpreter. She worked together with Gerónimo de Aguilar, a Spanish priest Cortés freed from the Mayans after years of captivity and knew Chontal, doing relay interpreting.  It wasn’t long before she learned Spanish and Cortés realized how skilled she was, so she became his personal interpreter.

Malinali and Cortes before Montezuma

Doña Marina, as the Spaniards referred to her, or Malintzin, as the natives called her (“Malin” being a Náhuatl mispronunciation of “Marina” and “-tzin” a reverential suffix for “Doña”) interpreted for Cortés in at least three combinations: Spanish, Náhuatl, and Chontal Maya, and there is reason to believe that she also spoke, or later learned other Mayan dialects as she served as interpreter for Cortés in what is now Honduras.  Testimonial and written accounts describe her interpreting consecutively and also doing whisper-interpreting for Cortés during many of the most important meetings with the native lords, including Montezuma, the Aztec emperor.  In fact Malinalli’s role went beyond mere interpreting; she was a cultural broker who helped Cortés to successfully establish alliances with natives who were enemies of the Aztecs like the Tlaxcalans. She also taught Aztec culture to Cortés, and even protected him by warning him of an assassination attempt that had been planned while they were staying in Zempoala, the same way modern-day military interpreters are trained to do if they ever find themselves in that situation.

It is clear that the fall of the Aztec Empire would have taken longer, and the outcome of the conquest would have been different if there had not been a Doña Marina.  Rodríguez de Ocaña, a conquistador that served during the conquest relates Cortés’ assertion that “…after God, Marina was the main reason for (his) success…”  In the “True Story of the Conquest of New Spain,” the widely acclaimed eye-witness account of the conquest, Bernal Díaz del Castillo repeatedly refers to her as a “great lady” always using the honorific title: “Doña.”

Very few interpreters have had the opportunity to be the “first” to do anything, and despite the fact that many Mexicans consider her a “traitor” for helping the Spaniards, on this anniversary of the fall of the Aztec Empire, as interpreters we should remember this pioneer of our profession, salute all the things that she did instinctively right without knowing formal interpretation, and recognize her for her key role in the fusion of two worlds until then apart. She was truly a bridge between two cultures that knew nothing of each other.  I would like to hear your comments about Doña Marina and her role in the history of interpretation.