As refugees settle in, city’s translation needs evolve
Special to ML

By Nirvana Bhatia
March 16, 2009 | 10:30 PM

Farsi. Karen. Kirundi. These are languages not often heard in Chicago.

But as refugees from Iran, Burma, and Burundi—plus a host of other nations—establish a life here, their growing communities need translation services.

“Refugees, and immigrants in general, who have limited English speaking skills face a range of difficulties," said Edwin Silverman, Illinois chief of the Bureau of Refugee and Immigrant Services. "[They risk] exploitation by a number of people, because they can’t understand the language.”

Between 2000 and 2006, the largest number of refugees arriving in Chicago, approximately 2,600, were from an African nation. Since then about 400 Burmese and 330 Iraqi refugees have arrived in the city.

City agencies try to provide interpreter services for whatever language is necessary. But as these refugees settle down and have more encounters with healthcare, social service and legal agencies, many of these smaller language groups are assuming a higher local profile.

“There is constantly movement in the languages needed,” said Madagli Rodriguez, director of the Office of Interpreter Services at the Circuit Court of Cook County. “In the last 10 years, there has been a percentage increase in demand for interpretive services overall.”

The Circuit Court has on-site interpreters for Spanish, Polish, and American Sign Language, languages they see every day. Everything else gets grouped into the “exotic language” category, for which the most-requested languages are Korean, Russian, Serbo-Croatian and Arabic. The court is required to find interpreters for non-English speakers within 48 hours.

The Touhy Health Center in Rogers Park keeps an Arabic and a Burmese language interpreter on staff to deal with the neighborhood's large refugee population.

Immigrants from Swahili-speaking countries are among those becoming more ingrained in daily life in Chicago. They include legal immigrants, those seeking asylum and students pursuing higher education degrees here.

“It’s not [a large influx] like the Chinese or the Latinos,” said Symon Ogeto, a coordinator of the SEED Group, Inc., a local enterprise focused on East Africans living in Chicago. “But still people are getting green cards through the lottery system, and Chicago is the main port of entry.”

According to the 2000 U.S Census, more than 15, 000 African-language speakers reside in Chicago. While more than 100 languages are spoken in East Africa, Swahili is a uniting language of the region which includes Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Somalia and East Burundi.

Navigating governmental red tape is crucial to survival in America. As East African students and refugees settle into American life, they have more interactions with the law. The need for Swahili-speaking court interpreters is increasing gradually.

“The law requires a translator be present in the court room,” Ogeto said, “Once you become part of the American fabric, you do get a traffic ticket or need help finalizing some immigration issues. The point is to eradicate any doubt with the language nuances.”

In 2007, Ogeto started the African Language Bureau to help meet the demand for Swahili interpreters, especially within the court system. Charging $50 for an hour of interpretation, he is looking to train more interpreters to join his staff of three. He also plans to offer classes for the general public to learn Swahili.

While an interpreter on hand to resolve a traffic violation might be a mundane matter, an interpreter can have a greater impact on an immigrant’s future in more life-altering situations.

Simba Tayari, executive director of the Swahili Institute in Chicago, related a case involving several people whose immigration status was unclear. The crisis was centered upon who qualified as a “refugee” as opposed to a tourist or an immigrant.

The clients’ future in America was in jeopardy.

“It was a special case,” Tayari said. “Some people were applying for refugee status, so it already wasn’t a normal case. They went to the court to present their claims, and in that case it was necessary to have the precise language.”

Other refugee relief agencies are also seeing higher demand for Swahili interpreters.

“We have had an increase in requests in the last few months,” said David Murad of the Heartland Alliance’s Cross-Cultural Interpreting Services program. “It’s definitely a larger number of people that are seeking [Swahili] services.”

The need for more language resources remains evident, but in a crippled economy, the funding isn’t there.

On Tuesday, the mayor’s office revoked an estimated $5 million, five-year contract for translation services by Cultural Communications LLC after backlash from the public, according to a Chicago Sun-Times report. Local aldermen joined citizens in protesting money spent on public relations contracts when the city is laying off many employees. Eleven contracts, amounting to a total of $55 million, were terminated. Cultural Communications translates documents from various city departments into other languages.

For the most part, the company does Spanish-to-English translations, but they also serve languages less prevalent in Chicago. For example, Cultural Communications created a Yoruba language program to assist a Head Start program last year. Yoruba is a language spoken by roughly 25 million people in Nigeria, Benin and Togo.

Rodriguez Bauer said that the Department of Family and Support Services usually winds up using the biggest slice of the contract provided by the city.

While economic times might be tough, Louis Provenzano of Language Line Services, a translation company that serves many Chicago businesses, said that’s no reason to curb spending that assists non-English speakers.

“When immigrants come to the states,” he said, “we just cannot provide enough English classes to assimilate them into the country. There are waiting lists upon waiting lists, which leads to a time lapse of being understood.”

Ogeto hopes that his African Language Bureau will highlight the need for more Swahili interpreters. Providing newcomers with people they can easily communicate with will allow East African immigrants to better adapt to life in America.

“Too many things are lost in translation,” he said. “And here, we are one community. We have to help each other survive.”

PS: This story first appeared in the Medill News Report on 3/5-09

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