Thread: Illegals "anchor" interpreters

Imagine a 7 or 8 year old trying to explain to employees of a salvage/car parts yard that her non-english speaking dad, standing behind her, needs the emergency flasher switch for his Ford Aspire's steering column. Young, and obviously intelligent for her age, she tries her best to articulate the part her dad needs as "the thing that makes the car lights work".

Imagine a 7 or 8 year old trying to explaining to her father that, unless a steering column is damaged, it is sold complete, including the switch he needs, for 125.00.

Imagine this poor kid, being dragged from salvage yard to salvage yard, looking for the same part..and trying to explain, over and over again, why her dad cant get it for 10.00-15.00 bucks.

I see, and live, this "anchor as interpreter" every day (the above happened yesterday).

How fun!

Imagine what a nightmare it will be when you take your story and times it by 17,000 Mexican trucks rolling around our country!

This is lunacy!

I have seen this happen around town so many times. I read an article about teachers who have to have the students translate over the phone with parents. It joked that the student may be telling the exact opposite information!!

NO joke though this issue. Don't you just eventually learn a language by osmosis? I lived in another country and picked up the other language sooner then later. So it drives me crazy when I read articles here that state the person here 20 years or more still needs help to translate.


See this store? Above the door they have a moving sign that says; We speak English too! I tried to get a picture but the light changed. I'll try again. Wild huh!

Why fedup,

What a lovely little store! Looks like California!

Man I miss the 50's and I wasn't even born yet!
I just miss pretty little churches and stores and parks and quaint little towns. I miss Americana.

I also miss what America was back in the 50's in the way that you described it. It felt, looked and smelled like America everywhere. There was a kinship shared by all that is missing today.

greyparrot, I was in the grocery store, where they have a take and bake pizza counter, picking up a pizza for my daughter. The worker was all alone, really busy, but right in front of me was this woman who was with her two kids, one about 9 (a girl) and teen son.

I assumed she was in line to order a pizza, so stood behind her patiently. Then her 9 year old daughter said something to her in Spanish and motioned over to where she stood off to the side, and also motioned to me. I assumed at that point, she must have been saying something to the effect about moving over (I then figured they had ordered) to where she (the little girl) stood.

Her mother shook her head no as she slightly turned and looked at me. Her daughter said something again, and her mother again remained impassive.

Then she said something to her daughter, the daughter said to the woman behind the counter, asked about their pizza. The woman said in an irritated tone "honey, I just told you to tell your mother that it is going to be about another 20 minutes, I am by myself and have a huge order, I'm sorry". This girl translated this to her mother, who had become irate towards this child over it.

I decided to go and find out if there was any ready-made in the deli section.

However, it struck me as I was walking away. This girl, my own youngest daughters age, speaks clear English, with no trace of an accent, so her mother has been here at least 9 or 10 years, why dosen't she speak English, why does she make that poor child deal with all of this for her. What does this say about parents who are either too lazy, or too stubborn to learn English and make their kids be their lifelong translators?

It speaks volumes to me, it tells me many of these parents are selfish and lazy, with absolutely no amount of decency in them to learn English so they will have to be the ones to deal with everyday life issues in this country, but put that responsibility squarely on their childrens shoulders.

Grayparrot,

I work on cars and get this quite often too. It's a waste of time mostly, since I won't use a/c parts from wrecked or totalled cars. The main reason being, is if the part fails, then it's expected of me to fix it on my dime. Ain't gonna happen. I explain, that if they want the best, buy the best. Go to dealership, buy the parts, and I will install them according to factory specs, and they will get a 12 month, 12,000 mile guarantee on the "parts". If they get anything else, it's a guarantee of 90 feet, or 90 seconds.

I read an article about teachers who have to have the students translate over the phone with parents. It joked that the student may be telling the exact opposite information!!

Living in Texas, I can not tell you the number of times I've been in a school and heard the little anchors translate for poor old mom and dad, and this is in Jr. and Sr. High schools!!! If these kids were born here, why haven't the parents learned English after 13 or more years??? Because they had no intention of ever doing so!! Just pisses me off even more!!!

I bet alot of them know more english than they say. I've seen this alot also. Its calling speaking convienant english.