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!

For language service providers, working from home was already relatively common before the pandemic. There were even some companies whose entire workforce worked remotely. With the coronavirus pandemic, most if not all LSPs have now moved to remote work. Some people are concerned that working from home leads to lower productivity. Many LSPs have seen a reduction in how much work they have, so comparing the company’s efficiency or productivity between “then” and “now” might not give a fully accurate picture of the effects of working from home. But since the future of COVID-19 is uncertain, we think it is likely that LSPs will continue to let their employees work from home for a while yet. And, if companies remain productive once business starts picking back up, perhaps more companies will consider going remote permanently.

Since almost everything has to be conducted remotely these days, usage of technology that allows us to communicate remotely has skyrocketed. This trend includes the use of remote interpretation technology, such as phone and video interpretation. These services allow critical information to be shared safely. While this type of interpretation is usually not a client’s first choice (many people naturally prefer in-person interpretation), people will get accustomed to using it. And once people are used to it, it is less likely that they will stop. This is why we think that even when in-person interpretation is safe again, remote interpretation will remain more popular than it was before the pandemic.

This pandemic has revealed the importance of medical interpretation and translation, and also the limitations that many health care providers have in providing these services, especially interpretation. Many hospitals were not set up to allow for crucial remote interpretation services. Once the pandemic hit, this became even less of a priority for many hospitals, which has potentially had drastic effects on the lives of non-English speakers who contract the virus (US News). Now that this issue has come to light, we hope that health care providers will take it seriously and take action to make language access possible, especially during a time like this when many lives are at stake. We think that this awareness could spark reforms that improve health care language access across the country in the long term.

Finally, we believe we might see a difference in what translators and interpreters choose to specialize in. As discussed before, many industries have been hard hit by this pandemic, and as a result companies are choosing to forego translation and interpretation services for the time being. However, some translators and interpreters are in extra high demand, like those who specialize in medical and legal work. Since many people are currently worried about job security, and will likely remain worried about it in the future, we can expect that many linguists will take steps to ensure their job security, including specializing in a domain that will always be needed even during global emergencies.

In times of uncertainty, speculating about the future can help us feel more prepared for whatever is to come. We are not sure whether our predictions will occur, of course. But what we are sure of is that most people who contribute to the language services industry are passionate and hard working, and will always do their best to make communication possible.