Watching them watching us - let's do it

This morning’s coffee-substitute seemed like an excellent time to round up a bunch of news items, as part of my hobby of watching the media watch translators at work – and the spaces they should have been.

In that latter category, failure to include a translator in a delivery room team led to the unnecessary and tragic death of a baby only ten days old, as we’re told by the Saipan Tribune. Let me shout it out from the rooftops: “What’s your native language?” should be right on top of medical charts. Situations of pain and stress (childbirth leaps to mind and does somersaults for us) can lead to an inability to focus on skills acquired late in life. Heck, breathing is enough of a problem. Language should be a checkbox, not a problem, and no baby anywhere should die of this.

U.S.A. Today tells us of an important part of cultural sensitivity: soldiers in Iraq are learning what the gestures mean. Always a paragon of brilliant reporting, this esteemed publication informs us that the low-down on gesturing “has found its way into a video game and training program the Pentagon uses to give soldiers a crash course in how to speak and gesture like the people they run across.” I look forward to reading some research about how playing a video game will help U.S.ian soldiers get into the very different interpretation of personal space that prevails Arab society. My crystal ball (right up on the window, yeah) shows a bunch of misunderstandings with people toting guns. Prospects for Iraqis? Overcast (or is that a bomber in their skies?)

The Post & Courier, of Chesterton, South Carolina, gives Walterboro translator Isabel Nettles a bit of a serenade when it sings her praises in its Unsung Heroes space. You go, Isabel!

Also in North Carolina, Maria Guerrero - a translator who could be paid handsomely for corporate work - has taken time to do community interpreting for schools, as we’re told in the Kernersville Journal. Consider this to be a loud cheer for you, Maria, from here in Port Townsend. Education, investing in our future, is made or broken by people like you.


And finally, a sad and dismal letter to the editor of the Murfreesboro, TN, Daily News Journal, about how the school districts of Tennessee do not, in fact, value the educational efforts of its teachers. What does that have to do with translation? Yes, you might well ask.

The correspondent, one Dr. Darcy (not Mr. Darcy, although one might wish to see him in the news today) hailed his sister-in-law’s career as corporate translator, which she took up under financial duress in order to pay off her student loans. Yes, she took to translating as a way of digging gold. Are we to expect a new gold-rush, with the dupes being not 49ers with pick axes but 09ers with dictionaries and the occasional laptop connector dangling behind them? And if so, is SDLX the new Levi’s?

I’ll be right back at the blog tomorrow morning with a fresh bunch of news about where translators are – or should be – and perhaps a theory or two tucked in. Let’s make the world better for translators – and our clients – shall we?