In resort mountain towns, there’s a growing need for Spanish interpreters
In resort mountain towns, there’s a growing need for Spanish interpreters
Celia Perez has been going back and forth between English and Spanish since elementary school.
“I didn’t really realize the difference in languages at home and school,” Perez said.
Perez moved here to Victor, Idaho, in the 1990s. It’s a bedroom community for Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and is nestled in the Teton Range. Perez was born in Mexico and raised in the United States, and as a kid, she stepped in to interpret for her mom.
“I noticed she needed help at the store, or my dad needed help with asking for something,” she said.
Now, Perez has a career as an interpreter. Her skills are especially needed in this resort community.
Here, Latinos work in construction, hotels and restaurants. These are jobs that take up a lot of time, so for those who don’t already speak English, often there’s not enough hours left in the day to learn the language. That makes it hard to access services, participate in local government and just do everyday things like go to the bank.
“We’re such a diverse community now,” Perez said. “So we have to be able to bridge that gap, or how are we going to be able to understand each other?”
Language interpretation is still a small industry. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates there are about 50,000 interpreters and translators nationwide, mostly in big metro areas. But in the next decade, the industry is expected to grow by more than of 20% in places like schools and health care offices, where interpreters are legally required.
This comes with a growing Latino population. By 2060, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that 1 in 4 Americans will be Hispanic.
That means more interpreters will need to be trained.
“So it’s not only listening, it’s active listening,” said Giovanna Carriero-Contreras. She was leading a workshop for new interpreters in an air-conditioned conference room in Jackson Hole. She’s training bilingual health workers, police officers, airline and hotel staffers. She told the class it’s not enough to simply repeat a Spanish speaker’s words in English or vice versa.
“We have to understand, process, analyze, convert and then deliver,” Carriero-Contreras said.
Interpretation is not just about what someone says but also how they say it. There’s emotion, pauses, regional dialects or idioms that Google Translate or artificial intelligence might miss.
And on top of that, at government meetings or public events, interpreters have to translate on the spot.
“Honestly, that’s very hard,” said Blanca Moye, who interprets at meetings for a Jackson Hole housing nonprofit.
At one of those events, Moye sat in the back of the room speaking Spanish into a small microphone during a presentation in English about affordable housing. A handful of Spanish speakers listened to Moye’s interpretation through headsets.
Moye said organizations are making events like this accessible through interpreters. Still, this is a growing region and new people are moving in from all over.
“It’s not just Spanish,” Moye said. “I think it’s important to see the huge need because the population is growing, and growing everywhere.”
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