By TAYLOR CASEY
Executive Editor
Translator jobs in the United States are steadily getting traction with the increased number of immigrants and refugees coming into the country. For students at The College of Saint Rose who are interested in pursuing the certificate in translation in Spanish to English, there is the opportunity to work as one.
Asylum seekers are typically refugees looking for solace and safety in the US, and even though many of them are facing a country that has turned against, students like the ones at Saint Rose are doing their best to help translating documents and getting them the shelter they need.
With the current presidential administration, Trump is looking to tighten asylum rules. In an article from The Washington Post, the president is wants to add measures to the current policies that would charge refugees seeking humanitarian refuge in the US. This is detrimental to those who cross the border and request the legal right for safe passage according to the asylum protections that are currently in place.
Arguments made by the president are that those who would request asylum are making up stories about their hardships. With the work that these interns are doing, they are getting an inside look at just how tough it has been for refugees coming from Central America.
This internship simulates some of what it is like to work as a professional translator, according to Claire Ziamandanis, one of the college’s Spanish professors. According to their website, the mission of The Legal Project is providing access to legal services regardless of income, gender, disability, race, religion, age, sexual orientation, or ethnicity.
The Legal Project cases are generally urgent, and it is with the hope that the interns will eventually be taking some of these to court. Some of these cases are even pro bono.
“When a student is ready for a project, I’ll send them a document,” said Ziamandanis. “I ask them for a deadline and a price for their client. This is an iterative process of proofreading and correction.”
Ziamandanis hopes that during their work, the students find value in proofreading. A lot of the times, the job of being a translator requires the ability to be on call to translate things such as birth certificates when an asylum case requires one. Birth certificates are among the easier documents for translation, but all the same, are important to many immigrants looking to enter the US.
Whether or not refugees are getting adequate legal representation is unclear. The students working with these refugees are discovering this, as well as the circumstances of their seeking asylum.
“In my Spanish written expression class as well, we’re talking about what can be done,” said Ziamandanis. Many of those looking to come to the US are fleeing from issues or violence and trafficking.
Ways to assist those seeking asylum can begin at the local level, not just the national.
“With the increase in refugees coming into the United States and looking for asylum,” said Ziamandanis. “The Albany county sheriff has started taking those refugees in and putting them in empty beds in his jail.”
Bianca Arellano, a junior communications major, is one of the students currently working as a translator.
“I had taken Claire’s Spanish class my freshman year and then I continued taking Spanish classes in order to complete my liberal education courses,” said Arellano. “This is my first year doing the translation internship. Being a translator allows me to share someone’s story and give that person a voice.”
Arellano noted the importance of keeping a deadline, knowing when to keep things confidential with a client, as well as proper time management.
“It takes a lot of time and effort but so worth it at the end of the day,” said Arellano. After she finishes with this internship, she is looking to continue working during the summer at another internship. Afterwards she hopes she can work with the Legal Project next year.
Along with Arellano, Yarinez Diaz is a senior majoring in psychology who is also working as a translator. Hailing from Puerto Rico, Diaz uses her first language as a way to get involved and help others.
“I used to translate or interpret for family members or people that needed my help in a doctor office or hospitals,” said Diaz. “It wasn’t until I heard that this certificate in translation was offered that I fully decided to educate and prepare myself as a translator to help more people out there.”
As someone who moved to the US when she was 15, Diaz knows the difficulty of what it is like to understand another language.
“The most rewarding thing about the work I do as a translator is how much I can do by translating a document,” said Diaz. “I believe that I have an essential tool knowing both languages and I should use it to help facilitate communication in Asylum cases or any other projects that need my services.”
The importance in having human translators is because artificial intelligence is not always a reliable way to get a proper translation. With the work that these students are doing, it is with the hope that they can make a difference.
