That article reminds us of a recent situation we encountered. We had a client seeking asylum in a somewhat remote location in the United States who requested Triqui interpretation. We were about to provide a Triqui interpreter over the phone for telephonic interpretation, given that in-person interpretation in such a remote location was not really possible for the client. However, at the last minute, the asylum office decided that they did not allow telephonic interpretation. There could be any number of reasons for the telephonic interpretation cancellation. Yet, these incidents have got us thinking. What rights do non-citizens have in the United States, especially in regards to translation and interpretation?

According to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, any program that receives Federal funds or financial assistance cannot discriminate based on race, color, or national origin of a person; this also means that these programs must provide access to people with limited English proficiency. Read more about Title VI here and more about Title VI and LEP services here.

However, Title VI does not provide an all-encompassing solution. Service providers are only required to take “reasonable steps” to give access to their programs to LEP individuals. Whatever the case, non-citizens do have the right to request language assistance from Federally-funded institutions. Non-citizen’s rights to have access to translation and interpretation is a basic human need for communication. We at Monterey Language Services are all for supporting the human rights that non-citizens deserve to have in whatever format that interpretation would be conducted, be it in-person, by phone, or over video.

This blog post is our first attempt to look into non-citizen rights to translators and interpreters, so stay tuned for more to come!

Our Director of Translation, Mei-Ling Chen’s article “Lost in Translation” in the ATA Chronicle illustrates how the design element of marketing ads, catalogs, and brochures are often overlooked in foreign language translation.

In motion pictures, the Oscar winning movie ‘Lost in Translation‘ (with Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson, directed by Sofia Coppola) vividly exemplifies the most embarrassing scenes happened in the translation/interpretation profession.  The Japanese director utters several long sentences with passion, followed by brief, inadequate translations into English from the interpreter.  The two central characters in the movie — Bob and Charlotte, both Americans — find themselves ‘lost’ in a culture that is foreign to them.

At Monterey Language Services, one of our missions is to promote communication beyond borders.  We encourage you to share your most interesting experience which arose due to cultural differences by posting your comments here.