How Interpreters Are Helping an Indiana Plant Address Its Labor Shortage
CNN (08/07/24) By Tami Luhby
DS Smith, a multinational packing company, realized they needed to rethink their approach to hiring for their corrugated box plant in Lebanon, Indiana.
The facility’s human resources manager, Becky Gordon, had a novel idea. She had noticed that the plant, which opened in 2019, had to turn away a growing number of job candidates who spoke only Spanish because it didn’t have bilingual personnel to interview, train, and manage them.
“In order to diversify and bring in more talent, we needed to be able to speak with people whose first language is not English,” Gordon said.
As a result, Gordon decided to hire a full-time interpreter, then added two more. That has enabled the plant to boost its Spanish-speaking workforce to 92, or 42% of its staff, up from eight people, or 6%, in 2022. The facility can now fill jobs in less than half the time.
The interpreter program is largely responsible for allowing the plant to triple the number of boxes it now produces annually compared to three years ago, in part because it’s able to fully staff a third shift.
According to translation and human resources experts, while U.S. companies have long worked with interpreters and translators, not many employ them as full-time staffers. Instead, businesses may use language service firms, hire contractors, or rely on bilingual employees to communicate with job applicants and workers.
“At least three quarters, if not more, of the translation and interpreting workforce in the U.S. are independent contractors,” said Ben Karl, spokesperson for the American Translators Association, the largest professional organization for translators and interpreters in North America, referencing several national studies. “There are actually very few staff interpreters in the U.S., and most of them work for the courts or for health care systems.”
DS Smith’s interpreting program has allowed the company to cast a wider net in recruiting in Lebanon, the largest of its North American facilities and the only one to employ interpreters, said Monica Anderton, the company’s chief human resources officer for North America. Now, its immigrant employees are referring friends and family for jobs. “It really tapped an underutilized labor workforce that was out there that we weren’t aware of until we put this in place,” Anderton said.
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Office of the Commissioner of Indigenous Languages and the Canadian Commission for UNESCO Forge Partnership to Advance Indigenous Languages
Office of the Commissioner of Indigenous Languages (07/03/24)
The Office of the Commissioner of Indigenous Languages and the Canadian Commission for UNESCO (CCUNESCO) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to work collaboratively to promote and support Indigenous languages across Canada. In a joint press release, the organizations stated that they share a common goal of “supporting the efforts of Indigenous peoples to reclaim, revitalize, strengthen, and maintain their languages.”
The five-year MOU, which was signed on June 19, 2024, outlines various areas of mutual interest, including exchanging knowledge to advance common objectives concerning Indigenous languages, advocating for and enhancing awareness about the significance of Indigenous languages, and working collaboratively on initiatives like the United Nations International Decade for Indigenous Languages.
The MOU emphasizes shared values of reciprocity, respect for Indigenous self-determination, transparency, and accountability in all joint projects and initiatives. It also supports the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
“This MOU represents a significant step toward helping to ensure that Indigenous languages in Canada are valued, protected, and promoted,” said Canada’s Commissioner of Indigenous Languages Ronald Ignace. “By working together with CCUNESCO, we can bring our collective expertise together to help support the important goals of the UN International Decade for Indigenous Languages.”
“With over 70 Indigenous languages in Canada at different stages of revitalization, and with the UN Decade of Indigenous Languages underway, this is a crucial moment for every Canadian to learn about and support endangered Indigenous languages,” said Yves-Gérard Méhou-Loko, Secretary General for CCUNESCO. “The protection and promotion of Indigenous languages is one of CCUNESCO’s priorities, given the important role of language in safeguarding the identities of Indigenous communities. CCUNESCO is excited to enter this new collaborative relationship and eager to put meaningful initiatives in place that reflect our shared goals.”
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Over 20,000 People Waiting to Learn English in Massachusetts
PBS (07/29/24) By Sarah Betancourt
According to the Massachusetts Coalition for Adult Education, over 20,000 immigrants are waiting to get into English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) classes across Massachusetts.
Residents with limited English proficiency say those long waits have hampered their ability to move forward with their lives. Learning English is integral to finding work and housing, helping children with school, navigating the health care system, and routine tasks like getting groceries and using public transportation.
“I want to learn because I have a daughter with significant disabilities, and all of her appointments are in English,” a woman named Edith said in Spanish. (Edith only wanted to provide her first name due to her ongoing immigration case.) Edith said she has waited about two years to get into an English-language course. She can only make time for an evening class, which limits her options in an already overburdened system. Edith said not knowing English has closed doors in helping her daughter, who can’t walk or see. Her limited language skills have also made it hard to find work beyond her job at a hotel.
“The last year or 18 months have shown us that while we have a good, solid ESOL system, it’s not ready. It’s not equipped to handle large numbers of new arrivals into the system,” said Claudia Green, executive director of English for New Bostonians, a nonprofit working to increase access to high-quality ESOL classes for adults in Boston and across the Commonwealth.
According to a new report by MassINC and the University of Massachusetts Donahue Institute, one in 10 workers in the state speaks limited English. The report also states that Massachusetts lacks a strategy — as well as state and federal funding — to help immigrants contribute to the economy at their full potential.
Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey’s administration has stated that it has launched an “unprecedented” strategy to increase access to ESOL classes through a pilot program for migrants in emergency assistance shelters, which offers online language learning and in-person classes focused on employment. Valentina Amaro, director of multicultural media for Healey, said nearly 1,250 people have enrolled in those courses since November 2023.
Beyond the shelter system, Amaro said the administration has increased state funding for ESOL by $3.5 million. The state said the Office of Refugees and Immigrants recently released a request for bids to expand services, and the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education funds providers that assist with adult education.
Laurie Millman is the executive director at the Center for New Americans, an organization that subcontracts for New Bostonians and has a presence in emergency assistance shelters. The group has program sites in Greenfield, Northampton, Amherst, and Springfield, with a combined waitlist of 80-90 people.
“The waitlists are enormous. It’s sad, because without English, people are really locked out,” she said. “It’s harder for them to find jobs when they’re not proficient in English. For example, if they’re Haitians living in shelters, they’re trying desperately to find housing in the community, and they understand that they need English to be able to advocate for themselves.”
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Judge Rules that Deaf Prisoners in Tennessee Lacked Interpreters and Videophones in Violation of ADA
The Tennessean (07/11/24) By Evan Mealins
A federal judge has ruled that Tennessee prisons violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and an anti-discrimination law by failing to provide sign language interpreters and videophones to a group of deaf prisoners who sued the Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC).
Under the ADA, deaf prisoners have the right to accommodations that provide communication that is as effective as communication for prisoners without disabilities. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 protects people with disabilities from discrimination.
U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger wrote in the ruling that accommodations for deaf prisoners “were frequently not provided by TDOC.” He granted partial summary judgment to some of the plaintiffs in the case.
“The plaintiffs have identified hundreds of high-stakes interactions in which interpreters were not provided, many of which involved situations — such as receiving medical care — in which effective communication is an inherently vital component,” Trauger wrote. “There is no longer any basis for disputing that such violations generally existed and were manifestations of a continuous, ongoing policy or practice.”
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Duke University’s Trinity College of Arts and Sciences to Offer New Cherokee Language Course
Cherokee News (08/05/24)
For the first time, Duke University’s Trinity College of Arts and Sciences will offer an Indigenous U.S. language course — Cherokee.
The new course recognizes the intertwined history of Duke University and American Indian education. From 1882 to 1887, Trinity College, then in Randolph County, North Carolina, ran the federally funded Cherokee Industrial Indian Boarding School, enrolling 20 children of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. The boarding school was closed in 1887, and Trinity moved to Durham a few years later. Trinity became Duke University in 1924 with the Duke family endowment.
In recent years, investigative efforts have brought increased attention to the brutal history of Indian boarding schools in the U.S. and the Americas. These institutions, often led by churches, removed children from their homes in violent attempts to assimilate them into the dominant culture — disrupting kinship networks and facilitating multiple forms of abuse in the process.
Criticized as cultural genocide, boarding schools discouraged and punished American Indian children for speaking their languages — precipitating a major decline in first-language speakers of Indigenous languages in the U.S.
“Trinity College started as a religious institute and federal boarding school that specifically had the policy of eliminating Indigenous languages and Indigenous culture — in this case, those of the Cherokee people,” said Courtney Lewis, Crandall Family Associate Professorship Chair in the Department of Cultural Anthropology, enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation, and inaugural director of Duke’s Native American Studies Initiative. “There is a moral and ethical component of teaching and bringing this language back to Duke.”
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