I wrote this feature article independently. It was awarded a Gold Key by Scholastic Art and Writing. See the PDF here. It is a cloudless Sunday morning when junior Nayla Henríquez closes out another deal for her mother’s cleaning business. Henríquez, by now a seasoned professional in business negotiations, expertly explains her mother’s pricing and services to the client before settling on a deal. Henríquez is accustomed to transactions like these. Her mother, like many Blair parents, immigrated to the United States from El Salvador and can only speak Spanish. Thus Henríquez, who is fluent in both Spanish and English, acts as a language broker for her mother, helping her navigate legal and financial matters. Henríquez’s mother has one of her children translate whenever she needs to do a price estimate for a client. “I do her bank stuff; I don’t think there’s a thing that I don’t know. I do her credit cards, I write checks,” Henríquez says. “She’s really dependent on her children, even though she's an independent person and she makes her own money and… owns her own business.” Henríquez is one of many Blair students who helps translate for non-native English-speaking parents. Around 570 students are currently enrolled in the Blair ESOL program, but many more non-ESOL students like Henríquez step up to translate for their parents. As ESOL department resource teacher Debra Adler says, all kinds of students may take on this responsibility.
“It is certainly not just students that are recently arrived [to the U.S.].… Even students that have been born here might be translating for their families,” she explains. As a result of their increased responsibilities, student translators often find themselves split between teenage and adult commitments. As Adler says, translating can either make students “more successful” or be “an extra burden,” depending on the family and the student. Whatever the case, juggling obligations from these two worlds inevitably requires students to make difficult prioritization decisions between family commitment and teenage life. Increased Obligations According to Adler, Montgomery County provides several resources for schools to communicate with parents who are not fluent in English. “We have many bilingual staff in school… When official things need to be done and parents call up we can offer someone who can help,” she says. “Additionally, the county has access to a language line so any teacher… can call and have a translator on the line speak to a family with a translator.” The county also offers online translations of letters sent home from school. Still, translating non-school-related matters for parents becomes a top priority for many students. Junior Aldo Martinez Nieto has found himself devoting many hours to translating documents from English to Spanish for his parents, which he finds often detracts from studying time. “It's hard to translate a whole document or a letter, and… sometimes you can’t translate exactly,” Nieto says. “It’s pretty time consuming.… I do it a lot, so sometimes it might take away time from me doing homework.” Similarly, junior Matthew Shu helps his mom, who primarily speaks Thai and Chinese, translate emails and text messages. The demands of high school have left Shu with little time to continue to assist her. “Whenever my mom needs to send an email to anyone basically, she wants me to look at it,” Shu says. “It wasn't [difficult to balance] before and I used to help a lot, but it is kind of [difficult] nowadays.” Switching Roles With parents who are unfamiliar with the American school system, students like Henríquez lack parental guidance in many areas. Each high school milestone, from standardized tests to school dances, is another step into uncharted ground. “My dad… doesn’t get standardized tests like [the] SAT and ACT.… When I first took my APs last year, which [were] AP Spanish and AP NSL, it was like new territory because my siblings hadn’t done it either,” Henríquez says. “They don’t know the customs here, so prom is new to them and homecoming is new to them, and it’s a different lifestyle.” As a result, student translators must take on self-sufficient roles within their own lives. Shu has filled out his own school forms and absence notes for as long as he can remember. Most of his learning throughout elementary school came not from his parents, but from review books. And when Nieto wanted to sign up for a community soccer team, it was up to him to figure out the registration logistics. Being a translator often requires Henríquez to put her teenage life on pause. “There are times when I’m hanging out with my friends and I have to cut it short because my mom needs me to go do something,” Henríquez says. “I have to stop being a kid and kind of be my mom's right hand person in a sense.… I know that if I don't do it no one else will.” Although translating can be stressful at times, Henríquez maintains a positive mindset. “It does get really frustrating sometimes, but then I have to take a moment back.… It's not her fault, and it's not my fault; it's just the situation that we have,” Henríquez says. “I know that I’m lucky that I can read and write and I know there’s a lot of people that can’t.” Multilingual Advantages While translating can be a time-consuming obligation, it does have its benefits. For one, research studies have shown that taking on such increased responsibilities can enhance students’ cognitive abilities. A 2003 survey of 280 sixth grade Latino family translators, published in the Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, found that they performed significantly better on reading and math portions of standardized tests than their non-translating peers. Further, frequent exposure to more than one language allows students to become more versatile in their communication abilities. Although attending daycare was initially a jarring cultural shock for Shu, who at that time could only speak Thai and Chinese, he quickly picked up English. “When I first went to daycare, I didn’t know how to speak with anyone, which was kind of terrifying,” Shu says. “Luckily, there was a Thai daycare person who was able to speak with me… [and] overtime I learned how to speak English.” Shu is now trilingual in Thai, Chinese, and English. Henríquez’s bilingual abilities have allowed her to contribute back to the community. Last year, as a Spanish interpreter for the Montgomery County Board of Elections, Henríquez used her Spanish language skills to assist non-English-speaking voters. “It was interesting how many people need help.… I was always busy,” she says. Henríquez believes that translating has not only made her more comfortable speaking to people, but has also broadened the scope of people with whom she can communicate. “I work with kids at a summer camp… [and] when I talk to their parents I have to speak Spanish because some of them don’t speak English,” Henríquez says. Still, some believe that translating for parents is too great a strain on children. In 2013, a former child interpreter wrote a California bill proposing to “ban the use of child interpreters younger than 15 by any state or local agency or program that receives state funding,” according to the LA Times. Henríquez believes that such a bill would be counterproductive. “If a student can [translate] or is willing to do it, I say just give them a chance.”
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