Thread: Charlotte has shortage of Spanish interpreters

!CAUTION! A BIG bucket for for vomit is needed for this one...

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/ ... 439692.htm



The struggle for understanding
Charlotte has shortage of Spanish interpreters
FRANCO ORDOÑEZ
fordonez@charlotteobserver.com

Charlotte's Spanish-speaking population is one of the fastest growing in the nation, and that tremendous growth is fueling an explosive need for interpreters.

Businesses, schools and government agencies are struggling to serve the growing need that comes along with thousands of new residents who do not speak English.

Consider:

• As many as 120,000 Latinos live in the Charlotte region.

• Nearly 15,000 Charlotte-Mecklenburg school students, or 12 percent, are Latino, with 2,500 new students reporting for class this year.

• Less than 3 percent of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police force speaks Spanish.

• Court interpreters often work up to 25 cases in a day.

• Hospital interpreters sometime answer as many as 30 calls a day.

"Almost any place you look, the need is there," said Michael Collins, vice president of the Carolina Association of Translators and Interpreters.

Between 150 and 200 professionally trained Spanish interpreters work in city hospitals, the courts, schools and businesses, according to Rick Haffner, co-owner of CICS Language Solutions, which provides interpreters to Carolinas HealthCare System and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, among others. Haffner emphasizes that its not enough to just speak two languages. Interpreters, who earn between $25 and $100 an hour, need to be able to explain legal proceedings and deliver life-threatening medical news.

There is such a demand for qualified Spanish interpreters, Haffner said, that he estimated 2,000 are needed to cover the various meetings involving the Spanish-speaking community.

Public and private agencies do what they can to compensate. The Division of Motor Vehicles allows applicants to take portions of the driving test in Spanish. The Police Department recruits from local Latino communities while it sends other officers to Costa Rica to learn Spanish. The Mayor's International Cabinet is building an online clearinghouse of nearly 200 public and private forms and brochures in Spanish and other languages.

"The city is changing," said Lorne Lassiter, executive director of the Mayor's International Cabinet. "The Spanish-speaking population is here. It's our obligation as a society to speak with them."

Fear and uncertainty

Angelica Sanchez, 37, panicked when she noticed unexplained bleeding from her newborn, Guadalupe. But she feared going to the hospital thinking doctors wouldn't be able to help and might even blame her.She went anyway. And it's a good thing she did.

After an interpreter helped her explain her daughter's symptoms to the medical staff, doctors at Presbyterian's pediatric hematology unit diagnosed her with having a treatable low platelet count.

"In the past, I wouldn't have come because I was scared no one would understand me," Sanchez said holding her daughter.

On the top floor of the Mecklenburg courthouse, nearly 10 percent of the children cared for at the court's daycare center are Latino, director Gloria Peters said.

The staff, none of whom are bilingual, has had to adjust. They've tried learning soothing sayings like "Tu mama vuelve pronto," or "Your mother will be back soon." But it's not the same as having a native speaker.

"It would be very helpful to have a Spanish speaker here," Peters said, motioning toward a Mexican mother as she filled out paperwork for the center to watch her 2-year-old son. "A lot of the times it's the children who interpret when we can't."

Maura Elguera Chavez, interpreter manager for the Mecklenburg County Courthouse, sighed when discussing how her 18 interpreters must cover cases for the district, juvenile, civil and criminal courts.

And she worries about finding a dozen more qualified interpreters to meet expected demands when the new, larger courthouse opens next year.

"Everyday, the demand seems greater," she said.

Change won't be ignored

The change is being seen in the private sector, too. Wal-Mart is building its Latin work force. The NFL put up at least four large "futbol americano" signs inside Bank of America stadium during last month's Monday Night Football game. The recently closed South Boulevard Winn-Dixie Supermarket is now a Compare Foods, a grocery store that targets the Latin market. The University City Home Depot keeps Spanish-English dictionaries at each cash register.

"It's retailing 101," Home Depot spokesman Don Harrison said. "If your customer is most comfortable in Spanish, then you have to communicate with them in Spanish." Many changes are driven by groups' efforts to comply with laws that require federally funded agencies to offer equal services to non-English speakers, said David Stewart, interim executive director of the International House, a non-profit agency that supports Charlotte's immigrant communities.

The debate in some other cities over whether to adopt Spanish as a second language is probably years away in Charlotte. But Stewart said it could begin sooner than expected if growth rates remain high and the language continues to spread.

"The question is what's going to be the city's identity down the road," he said. "Where is all this going?"

Translating Law

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 requires anyone receiving funding from any federal agency to refrain from spending those dollars in any way that would discriminate on the basis of race or national origin. The Department of Justice has ruled in recent years that failing to provide language translation constitutes a violation of the law as it pertains to national origin.
Franco Ordoñez: 704-358-6180; fordonez@charlotteobserver.com

If Charlotte has a shortage of Spanish interpretors, then it's got an overage of Spanish Speakers which means you're experiencing an Illegal Tsunami Invasion in violation of US Immigration Law. These people need to be deported and returned to their countries of origins immediately before they breed.

Or you'll be changing the name of your city to Charlotta, Mexico sooner than you may have otherwise desired.

GET TROOPS TO THE BORDERS NOW!!

I just sent the reporter an email asking why he didn't reeport on the rapist, everyone should email that SOB.