July 19, 2007

Translation challenges local offices
Spanish readers find hit-and-miss results

By ED COX
of The Chronicle

     How do The Dalles families who speak only Spanish get information on vital services from local public agencies? More or less imperfectly, it seems, especially when it comes to written text.
     Local strategies for providing information in Spanish run the gamut from manual translation work by paid, qualified staff to computer-assisted, on-the-fly translating.
     And everything in between — or nothing at all.
     “They’re not that good,” says Casa Loma resident Fanny Vazquez of the majority of translations done here. The young mother, who was raised in The Dalles and speaks both Spanish and English, often accompanies friends from her west-end apartment complex as an interpreter.
     “Most of the Mexicans don’t even understand how they [translate] from English to Spanish,” she says. “[They think], ‘What are they talking about?’”
     Still, whatever the challenges, methods, and flaws of the practice, many agencies are increasingly attempting to serve the growing Spanish-speaking community through translation.
     “It just makes sense,” says Wasco County District Attorney Eric Nisley, who knows of no legal requirement outside of the court system to provide for interpretation or translation into a language other than English — except sign language and braille, as mandated by the Americans with Disabilities Act.
     Still, he says, many organizations have made a policy decision to provide information in Spanish, finding that it gives them an economic advantage — or a service advantage in the case of public agencies.
     Of the local entities The Chronicle talked to, four — the Northern Wasco County People’s Utility District, the Northern Wasco County School District, Wasco Sherman Public Health, and the Wasco County Department of Youth Services — say they regularly provide written information in Spanish.
     Others, such as the City of The Dalles, Wasco County, and Northern Wasco County Parks & Recreation District, say their need is much less regular, although some minimal information is or has been made available.
     Linda Wilson, media manager at the Northern Wasco PUD, says her office deals several times per week with Spanish speakers applying for electric service. She says they have many forms available in both Spanish and English, as well as a bilingual staffer for interpreting needs.
     To arrive at the translations, she says the PUD worked with a Spanish teacher at the high school, then incorporated modifications based on comments from their janitor’s wife.
     The school district, on the other hand, relies heavily on bilingual employees, including two elementary school principals, for its frequent bilingual communications.
     “We need to be sensitive to our Spanish-speaking population,” says Dry Hollow Elementary principal Greg Bigelow, who does most of the translating for his school and, together with Chenowith Elementary principal Matt Ihle, quite a bit for the district office as well.
     Bigelow, who has a degree in Spanish, which he originally learned working with Hispanics in high school and then perfected on a Spanish-speaking church mission to Chicago, says he considers it “really critical” to try to reach all parents of schoolchildren.
     He explains that there’s someone at every school — be it an administrator, teacher or assistant — who can do translation. The high school also recently contracted out a translation of its handbook and prospectus, according to vice principal Nick Nelson.
     Wasco Sherman Public Health faces a daily need for translation services, according to Maria Pena, a bilingual community health worker. The agency has a contractor for written translation, provides all its paperwork in Spanish and has nine bilingual staff members and a nurse practitioner who can provide on-site attention or interpreting.
     Molly Rogers, director of the Wasco County Department of Youth Services, says she is fortunate to have even one bilingual, bicultural secretary, who serves people “multiple times a week” in Spanish over the phone.
     Her department also contracts with a couple of local interpreters and tries to recruit bilingual probation officers, something she finds “very difficult” due to the scarcity of candidates and the competition for them.
     Trudy Townsend, who administers the Wasco County Commission on Children and Families as part of Youth Services, says her agency has done everything from buy materials in both languages, to hire out translations, to rely on bilingual staff from partner agencies for help.
     “We truly believe translation needs to be professionally done by someone who is qualified to do it, but we generally don’t have the money to do it that way,” Townsend explained.
     Wasco County Judge Dan Ericksen says that while some of the county’s departments face a frequent need for Spanish-language information, there’s little at the county government level.
     When there is, the person with the need will usually bring along someone to translate or interpret, or Ericksen, a cherry farmer who works regularly with Hispanics, will do the job himself. There’s also a bilingual staffer in the district attorney’s office who can help, he says.
     Julie Krueger, city clerk for the City of The Dalles, says the most significant contact with Spanish-speakers comes through the city’s water department. Kate Mast, the city finance director who oversees water billing, says there is “very seldom” a need for interpreting — most of the time, she says, they are able to communicate with Spanish speakers.
     Northern Wasco County Parks and Recreation District faces an equally infrequent need to translate, says administrative secretary Jennifer Botts. In the few instances when she has had to, Botts, who does not speak Spanish or have the luxury of a bilingual co-worker, has resorted to computer translation, imperfect as she knows it is.
     “If there’s a need, I’ll do everything I can, and hopefully we’ll just work together to get the closest translation possible,” Botts said.
     And yet, as Vazquez’s comments indicate, the closest translation possible seems to be an elusive thing in The Dalles.
     A cursory survey of documents provided in Spanish by various agencies turned up many riddled with errors, from misspellings and grammar problems to literal renderings bordering on the incomprehensible.
     Silvia Huszar, a Colombian native who lives in White Salmon and teaches Spanish at Columbia Gorge Community College, has seen her share of bad translations as well.
     Huszar, who does translation free of charge “for fun and to help people out,” thinks computer translation is a major culprit. “It’s crazy,” she says of the text that results.
     Another problem, she says, is that many people here speak “Spanglish,” a mix of English and Spanish that causes them to say things like “pushar el carro” (push the car) that don’t exist in Spanish. Before she came here, Huszar says, she never heard an application referred to as an “aplicacion,” but only by the proper term “solicitud.”
     Huszar thinks that written translation should be done by native speakers who have lived in a Spanish-speaking country and studied at the university level. Inaccurate translations or those using “Spanglish” only add to the distortion of the language, she says.
     Complicating factors, she says, include a high illiteracy level among local Spanish speakers and a reluctance to read on the part of those who can, though she emphasizes that this is changing, as new generations attend college to improve their standard of life.
     Noting that reading is the major tool for teaching proper language use, Huszar says people in the area need to be exposed to correct Spanish on a regular basis. She sees a bilingual newspaper — something along the lines of Portland’s Hispanic News — as a way to accomplish that and help inform the Hispanic      community.
     Meanwhile, Spanish speakers like those at Casa Loma apartments will struggle in many cases with highly imperfect translations that they may or may not be able to read in the first place.
     Most will depend on their sometimes school-age children to do their interpreting for them. Some, like Benjamin Garcia, who doesn’t read in either language and has been in The Dalles just one year, will resort to animated gestures or call on a bilingual friend, such as Vazquez.
     Others, Vazquez says, will just give up, either paying a bill they don’t understand the meaning of or waiting until services are cut off for non-payment.
“They don’t know how to defend themselves,” she says.