Black, Deaf Google Employee Sues Tech Giant for Discrimination
New York Post (03/14/24) By Alyona Uvarova
A black, deaf employee of Google—who had been celebrated at corporate events and on social media as a success story for the search giant’s inclusive workplace—has accused the company of discrimination based on her disability and race.
In a lawsuit filed in the U.S. Northern District of California, Jalon Hall criticized Google for limiting her access to sign language interpreters months after starting the job.
In the complaint, Hall described Google’s management environment as hostile and racially charged.
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Washington State May Be the First U.S. State to Require Licenses for Translators, Interpreters
Slator (02/16/24) By Seyma Albarino
Washington State is currently considering a bill that would establish professional licenses for translators and interpreters (T&Is).
Senator Rebecca Saldaña sponsored Senate Bill 5995, which passed the State Senate on February 2.
“If enacted, this legislation would make Washington the first state to officially recognize interpreters and translators as licensed professionals, emphasizing the importance of their role,” stated a brief from Saldaña’s office, in which the bill is described as a step in improving language access for individuals with limited English proficiency.
According to the text of the bill itself, however, SB 5995 is intended to standardize the requirements and processes across several state agencies using T&Is. In practice, it would introduce an additional layer of bureaucracy for T&Is, and possibly language services providers, operating in Washington.
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Researchers Study How Polyglots Process Languages
Reuters (03/11/24) By Will Dunham
In a new study published in the journal Cerebral Cortex, polyglots are helping to provide insight into how the brain deals with language.
In the study, the brain activity of a group of polyglots was monitored using a method called functional magnetic resonance imaging as they listened to passages read in various languages.
With one intriguing exception, activity increased in the areas of the cerebral cortex involved in the brain’s language-processing network when these polyglots—who spoke between five and 54 languages—heard languages in which they were the most proficient compared to ones of lesser or no proficiency.
“We think this is because when you process a language that you know well, you can engage the full suite of linguistic operations—the operations that the language system in your brain supports,” said Massachusetts Institute of Technology neuroscientist Evelina Fedorenko, a member of MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research and senior author of the study.
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Nebraska Court Interpreters May Lose Recent Wage Increase
Lincoln Journal Star (03/04/24) By Alex Vargas
Pay rates for Nebraska court interpreters are in jeopardy of decreasing just a year after they received a raise for the first time since 2004.
Wages for court interpreters increased in 2023 from $50 per hour for certified interpreters to $75 per hour—short of the $85 per hour they were seeking. Without additional funding, there is a possibility of wages dropping back to the 2004-2022 rate of $50 per hour.
“We were asking for $85 to be able to have the same purchasing power that we had in 2004,” said Vladimir Bazan, a certified interpreter for Nebraskan courts.
Senator George Dungan proposed a bill in 2023 that would have appropriated $1.2 million in the budget to cover the rate increase for court interpreters. Eventually, the funding in the bill was reduced to $400,000 and was ultimately vetoed by Governor Jim Pillen, who believed the Nebraska Supreme Court had enough funding to cover the rate increase. State Court Administrator Corey Steel did use funds from the court’s budget to increase wages for interpreters, but only for a year.
The veto and subsequent legislative actions highlight the ongoing struggle to ensure fair compensation for court interpreters.
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Minnesota Court Interpreters Go Back to Work
Star Tribune (02/26/24) By Maya Rao
Minnesota court interpreters suspended their work stoppage at the end of February after seven weeks, saying they will now focus on collaborating with legislators, along with the state’s judicial branch and judicial council, to try to increase their pay and improve working conditions.
Certified Spanish interpreter Marjorie Evans-de-Carpio said the group had garnered support from the judicial system, national organizations, and lawmakers, and that they had succeeded in making their important role visible. “What we need to do is work with the legislature…if we do not see progress, we keep open the option to make a stoppage again in the future, but as of now it didn’t seem like the right tactic any longer,” Evans-de-Carpio said.
Court interpreters began their work stoppage on January 8 to protest inadequate compensation and other issues. Interpreters were paid $50 per hour in 1997, and after decades of stalled wages a new policy increased their rate from $56 to $65 this year—a raise interpreters say still drastically fails to keep up with inflation. To have the same purchasing power they did 25 years ago, interpreters had asked the courts to raise their pay to $95 per hour. Interpreters work as independent contractors who receive no benefits, and typically are granted no more than 20 hours a week.
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Two Canadian Translators Make Longlist for $130K Griffin Poetry Prize CBC (03/20/24)
Two Canadian translators have made the longlist for the Griffin Poetry Prize. The $130,000 prize is the world’s largest awarded for a single book of poetry written in or translated into English.
George McWhirter was recognized for Self-Portrait in the Zone of Silence, written by Mexican poet Homero Aridjis, which was translated from Spanish.
Emilie Moorhouse was recognized for Emerald Wounds: Selected Poems of Joyce Mansour, written by Egyptian-French writer Joyce Mansour, which was translated from French.
A total of 592 books were submitted by 235 publishers from 14 different countries.
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