#stressfulsemantics

Hi honey! I’m really honored to receive this question because it’s so insightful and dedicated to something I’m incredibly passionate about. It overlaps with sociology, law, and politics. So, first I’ll talk about what I’m personally planning to do outside of/past academia, and then I’ll talk about other avenues one can take, both on a large and small scale.

Right now, my goals are to be either a medical or legal interpreter, and I’m leaning toward the latter. What that means, for those that don’t know, is that I want to go through a graduate degree or certificate program in order to be certified to translate specific languages orally in a highly specialized workplace, namely a hospital or a courtroom.

The reason why I’m so passionate about this job is because, while we have laws such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (which prohibits discrimination based on “national origin,” which is closely tied to the native language you speak) we still see a lot of prejudice and violence against people who choose to speak their native/a different language on their own terms in public. 

More specifically, what I aim to do is make it easier for non-native English speakers (especially, but not limited to, immigrants) receive the same services all people have a right to but they may have difficulty getting, such as medical attention or accurate legal representation. Interpretation is incredibly high stakes in my eyes because you have to translate automatically, in person, with a lot of pressure on you to do it quickly and accurately. And that’s really scary, but to me, what’s scarier is that someone might not be getting the care they need or be understood in a courtroom, and that could impact their health, their safety, their freedom, or their ability to get justice.

While someone might not necessarily be actively sabotaged in a courtroom or a hospital, those are high profile environments with a lot of pressure, and not a lot of time for patience and forgiveness if you’re trying to get through a case or to the next patient. The odds are stacked against someone who doesn’t have the specific vocabulary needed to accurately describe their symptoms or deliver their testimony. 

And that’s not even counting the ingrained and/or active biases that are found on a serious level in the United States healthcare and justice systems. One of the reasons I’m leaning toward legal interpretation is because I would love to be employed by an organization that protects immigrants from being exploited or abused by our current administration. And that’s so much easier to do when you have bilingual representation to fight with you for your rights.

So, that’s a little background on what I’m specifically studying and fighting for. Here are just a few quick bullets that I always tell people when talking about linguistic discrimination and our role in it.

On a large scale, you can:

Go into a career like mine (law, interpretation, translation, etc) that focuses on combating it.

Support political campaigns and anti-discrimination bill campaigns by volunteering your time to organizations like the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) and RAICES (Refugee And Immigrant Center for Education and legal Services)

SPEAKING OF WHICH, if you’re like me and you use Lyft, you can donate to RAICES with each Lyft Ride. They’ll round up to the nearest dollar on your fee and donate that extra. All you have to do is go to the app and opt in under “Donate.”

Attend conferences, meetings, workshops, and rallies that center around this topic and intersecting ones that you may be interested in.

Volunteer your time to places like housing projects. This is something that I’m on an email/calling list to do. Specifically for me, it’s the Boston Housing Authority, and their volunteers send in a resume, state which languages they have high proficiency in (mine is currently only Spanish) and then attend a training to understand how to do it accurately and with cultural sensitivity. It’s great practice if you need to polish your language skills, are planning to go into a career like mine, or want to use highly-specialized vocabulary. I’ve had to pick up a lot of words that have to do with landlords, rent, housing laws, etc. A lot of the people serviced by the BHA are immigrants or non-native speakers and struggle with things such as reading official letters or making appointments with native English speakers. When they struggle to do this, they’re more likely to get taken advantage of by landlords, evicted unfairly, or mistreated.

Support (through volunteering, donating, etc) indigenous or indigenous-helping groups that combat issues ranging from seizure of land in the Amazon to indigenous groups working on their terms to preserve/revitalize their language(s). It’s really easy for indigenous voices to  

On a small (but equally important) scale, you can:

Call out linguistic discrimination that you see, such as people denying individuals service based on hearing them speak in another language, or unnecessarily bothering them in public. Whenever possible, take video of the incident.

Have polite and informed discussions with people who want to know more about it or might not understand why it’s a problem. This is particularly important to have with kids, and while I was volunteering/teaching Hebrew I made sure that it was integrated into the lessons.

Remain informed on cases involving linguistic discrimination.

Call your representatives when cases come up concerning linguistic discrimination or immigration policy.

Vote for representatives who believe in acceptance and equality for people who come from different backgrounds/languages. 

Boycott/denounce companies and organizations that improperly handle workplace/customer discrimination or instigate it themselves.

Follow native speakers, particularly indigenous individuals and/or minority language speakers, as well as linguistic/social activists and journalists/academics, on your social media feeds (my preferred one to check is Twitter) for updates and opinions on issues that may help you get more informed outside of a classroom/professorial setting.

Be aware of the kinds of resources you should reach out to (administration, superiors, HR, etc) should you find yourself experiencing or watching someone experience linguistic discrimination.

Disclaimer: before stepping into any confrontations, make sure you assess the danger of the situation (this where it’s really good to go to trainings to learn how to handle these kinds of situations). Your goal is to always de-escalate and make the person being discriminated against safer, as well as of course keeping yourself safe too. If there’s violence or anyone is in immediate danger, call the authorities and document whatever you can safely. I’ve only ever seen people being verbally abused for their use of their language(s), but it’s a scary world out there right now.

Overall, it’s really important to remember that this kind of discrimination does not exist in a vacuum and almost always has ties/roots in other forms of discrimination and racism. While it may seem like you’re only doing something small by stepping into and diffusing confrontation/condemning discrimination, you’re having a ripple effect that lets people who linguistically discriminate know that they should be ashamed of their words/actions. 

ALSO, friendly reminder that people who discriminate/harass someone for speaking in another language, having an accent, etc, are not entitled to be put up with due to free speech. That isn’t what it means.

A couple more resources on language discrimination in the workplace:

Language Discrimination & Workplace Fairness

Legal Aid at Work

World Language Education: Preventing Linguistic Discrimination

THIS IS BY NO MEANS ALL-ENCOMPASSING! It is also fed by the researched but incomplete knowledge I have on the subject as a non-expert and a student who is aspiring to meet these kinds of goals. Because I’m a student, I’m always learning, and that means growth must sometimes take the place of changing things I thought I knew and admitting mistakes. 

If you have anything else you want to add to this, please feel free to message me or reply/reblog. 

If you see any inaccuracies, incomplete information, or other concerns/issues with what I’ve written here, please take the time to contact me and educate me! 

6.7.19: Summer Semester Started  Hello everyone! This week I started my online summer class: eMarketing. It should be a fairly easy class being as it is just assignments and quizzes (seriously there isn’t even a final). But the summer is long because I am also working so there’s that. I am coping by trying to read and play as much dungeons and dragons as my heart can handle (which oddly still isn’t enough).

all you have to do is pass - you can do it, its usually not that hard just to pass. if there's any way to take another semester or year just to write your papers, even if they're really shitty papers, I'd say do it. there's such a big difference between having a degree and not having one in terms of getting jobs and stuff that its worth doing, even if you have to do it badly.

and if you need any help with anything (if its in English, that is) I’m here for you

Yeah, that’s what I’m planning on doing with that one course that’s just a final - just passing it.

As for the papers, idk, I’d feel so ashamed to submit bad papers? I KNOW it’s just my perfectionist self and perfectionist upbringing speaking but I could never bring myself to submit papers that I think are 100% shitty, I’d feel like a disgrace who’s being insanely disrespectful towards her professors :/ I just... can’t.

Also I cannot write in any case, my brain just goes all ‘poof’ and I forget how to word, even if my brain has the right analysis already prepared in it (which it mostly does for BOTH papers, I just... cannot bring myself to WRITE all of these)

Also, thank you, I appreciate it a lot <3

If I do end up writing these papers, one of them will be in English for sure and I’ll defo send it to you for proofreading, if that’s ok with you, though I don’t think I’ll ever get there :/

Ideally I’d need someone to sit next to me and FORCE me to write but I don’t even have the time for that bc of work :/ 

🕊 45 | day 14/31: Favourite study method(s)? What works best for you?

🕊 36 | day 24/31: What are your best study tips?

practice, practice, practice

find other resources to explain things

may is officially one week away, which means my summer is getting started a little earlier this year with ...

!!!

over the next three months, i have some really important language goals to hit before starting graduate school [and losing much of my self-study time]. so, what better way to ensure i reach those goals than creating a challenge!

🥞 to be a member of The Fifty Hours Club:

choose a target language [or two!]

determine at least one goal to work towards over 50 hours.

send an ask to let me know you’re interested [and if you would like to be a part of a discord server for this!]

🍒 ways to get your hours climbing:

making vocabulary lists with your own sample sentences taking notes on grammar structures keeping a language journal watching movies / tv shows and writing down the vocabulary speaking with or messaging someone in your target language studying one of your target languages with another target language through a course doing flashcards breaking down lyrics of a song listening to podcasts creating flashcards on quizlet and more!

for me, i have two target languages [spanish, and japanese], and three goals per language. i’ll commit to 50 hours between the both of them, and by the end of this challenge, i should have 150 hours logged of study time!

you can start your own challenge at any time this summer [or winter for my southern hemisphere friends !]. i will begin checking the tag below on May 1st.

if you want to join this challenge and post on tumblr about it, please use the tag #fiftyhoursclub so that i can reblog your progress posts!