One Movement, Many Languages:
Building Multi-lingual Capacity at the U.S. Social Forum
The first United States Social Forum (USSF) was unquestionably a
historic moment. Ideas and strategies were shared amongst activists, organizers,
and community members. Participants built relationships, developed proposals,
and decided upon action steps. People left the USSF convinced that “Another
World is Possible, Another US is Necessary” is more than just a slogan. And the
commitment that the organizers of the USSF made from the beginning to
prioritize the participation of low-income communities of color and other
marginalized groups meant that, rather than academics or employees of nonprofits analyzing their problems for them, oppressed communities were there
speaking for themselves.
Some of the most significant political outcomes of the US Social Forum
would not have been possible without multi-lingual infrastructure. Imagine trying
to build a national domestic workers network without Spanish-English
interpretation, or what it would look like to build black and brown unity if the black
and brown people could not communicate across language barriers. This article
will discuss the importance of building multi-lingual capacity in our movements for
social justice, what language access at the USSF looked like on the ground, the
organizing that went into building this infrastructure, and lessons that can be
learned for the future. I was the Language Access Coordinator for the USSF and
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therefore speak with a great deal of familiarity, but not much neutrality, about the
subject.
Multi-lingual Capacity as a Movement-building Tool
“Just as ‘another US is necessary,’ another model of organizing is critical
to building a popular and effective social justice movement. Part of this model is
transforming our orientation, culture, and practice to be multi-lingual.” This
statement was made by Jane Sung E Bai of CAAAV: Organizing Asian
Communities.
One key reason that our movements need multi-lingual capacity is
because the movements and the people who make them up are multi-lingual. As
Steve Williams of POWER (People Organizing to Win Employment Rights) puts
it: “Ultimately, the people who will lead a movement for social transformation in
this country are multi-racial and multi-lingual, and if the organizers of the growing
movement want to build solidarity between these communities, we have to make
sure that they have the tools to communicate with other organizers and activists.”
Being able to participate in a movement is not enough. Building multilingual capacity is important so that people can express themselves freely in the
language that is most comfortable to them and, as Ruben Solis of the Southwest
Workers Union says, “to participate as equals regardless of the language
spoken.”
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Roberto Tijerina, who coordinates the Highlander Research and Education
Center’s multi-lingual capacity building program, talks about another aspect of
multi-lingual capacity as a movement-building tool: “Highlander has been working
intentionally to increase multi-lingual capacity in Southern and Appalachian
movement spaces for six years. This effort has focused on sharing an analysis of
language as a tool of power, used either to include or exclude specific
communities from fully integrating into the conversation. Creating multi-lingual
spaces is more than good practice - it is a justice issue as well as a walking out
of anti-racist principles.” Ruben Solis adds: “English is used most of the time so it
is positioned ideologically as superior to others.” By strengthening our multilingual infrastructure, we are working against this positioning of English as
superior to other languages.
Finally, building multi-lingual capacity makes our movements stronger by
bringing together the experiences, voices, and wisdom of many different
communities. This point is important because too often there is an assumption
that language access infrastructure is only for the benefit of the people who
speak limited English. We all benefit from this sharing of different perspectives,
individually and collectively. This is the fundamental premise of the Social Forum,
and it would not be possible without multi-lingual capacity.
With this political framework, the National Planning Committee (NPC) of
the US Social Forum committed to the USSF being a multi-lingual space. As
Michael Leon Guerrero of Grassroots Global Justice, one of the key organizers of
the USSF, says: “The USSF being held in more than one language was
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significant not just so that more people would have access. The USSF has to be
a multi-cultural process. It must reflect the diversity of the United States.” This did
not mean, however, that every event was multi-lingual or that there was
interpretation into all languages spoken by the participants. Michael Leon
Guerrero adds, “Unfortunately we only had capacity to provide for three
languages [English, Spanish and American Sign Language]. We hope that we
can expand to more languages the next time around.”
Language Access at the US Social Forum
So what did multi-lingual work at the US Social Forum actually look like on
the ground? How many workshops were interpreted? Were all the materials
translated? Did it go well? Were there any major disasters?
All of the events organized by the NPC - the opening and closing
ceremonies and the morning and evening plenaries - were simultaneously
interpreted into Spanish and American Sign Language. (They were conducted
primarily in English). When there was a speaker in another language,
consecutive interpretation was provided from the stage.
Approximately one third of the self-organized workshops had EnglishSpanish interpretation. In order to facilitate monolingual Spanish speakers
choosing which events they wanted to attend, the printed program indicated in
which language each workshop was being held and whether there would be
interpretation provided. The Language Access Team interpreted for about 10% of
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the approximately 1000 workshops that were held. Most workshops were held in
English and simultaneously interpreted into Spanish, but some were held in
Spanish and simultaneous interpretation was offered into English. Hundreds of
other workshops had interpretation provided by the workshop organizers.
Recognizing this - that much of the language access work was happening in a
decentralized fashion, by dozens of the organizations participating in the USSF,
and recognizing as well that our capacity was too limited to provide interpretation
in other languages, the NPC offered to waive the registration fee of any
interpreter who was accompanying an organizational delegation to interpret in
any language.
Since there was a relatively small number of people needing American
Sign Language (ASL) interpretation and only a few ASL interpreters, the
Language Access Working Group decided that it made the most sense for the
ASL interpreters to accompany the deaf and hard of hearing participants to the
events of their choosing, rather than deciding ahead of time which workshops
would have ASL interpretation. The Language Access Working Group
coordinated closely with the Deaf and Deaf-Blind Committee for Human Rights to
organize the ASL interpretation.
All official USSF materials were bilingual in Spanish and English, including
the printed program, the signage and the website. Well, most of the website was
bilingual. Translating all of the many, many documents on the website was
definitely one of the challenges.
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As the Language Access Coordinator, I was a part-time staff person
starting in the beginning of April, 2007. In addition, the Language Access Team
was made up of a Language Access Working Group which coordinated the
planning and preparation; a coordinating team which dealt with all aspects of
language access during the forum itself; a team of volunteer interpreters
including a core group of 25 interpreters working full-time and a number of other
“floating” volunteer interpreters; another group of volunteers who mainly helped
to distribute and collect the interpretation equipment; Prometheus Radio Project,
which developed interpretation equipment for the USSF using FM radio
technology and was there to set up the equipment and troubleshoot; and
volunteer translators who translated materials from English to Spanish in the
weeks and months leading up to the USSF.
Everyone worked extremely hard. The coordinating team worked
practically around the clock to ensure the smooth functioning of the language
access work - organizing the final details, supporting the interpreters, responding
to last minute requests for interpreters and equipment, and resolving problems as
they inevitably arose. The core interpreters worked long hours at a difficult task anyone who has done simultaneous interpreting knows that it is extremely taxing,
mentally and physically. The interpreters frequently commented that they had
worked so many shifts back to back that they hadn’t had time to eat; another
logistical challenge was that some of the venues were far away from each other.
The floating volunteer interpreters and the equipment volunteers gave hours of
their time and were flexible with their availability. The Prometheus team had to
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set up and take down mobile interpreting stations in seven different locations
every day and staffed each of these stations in case of any problems. The
volunteer translators often had a very small window of time; for example, when
the printed program (which was an enormous document) was finished, it had to
be translated and sent to the printers in a few days.
As Roberto Tijerina, a member of the coordinating team, describes it:
“Working on the USSF Language Access Team has been one of the most
challenging and rewarding experiences in my multi-lingual capacity building
work. There were many unexpected complications; the learning curve was steep.
But what a team! Besides the commitment of the NPC to creating a multi-lingual
space, the other important factor to any success was the people who made up
the Language Access Team. This includes both the coordinating team (Hilary
Klein, Viviana Rennella, Alice Johnson, and me) as well as all the wonderful and
skilled interpreters who stepped up and worked their collective butts off. It would
not have happened without their selfless commitment to the work. Through
moments of tension, crisis, and grumpiness, the Language Access Team held it
together with grace, humor, and compassion. In shop talk, it was the hardest ‘gig’
I have ever had but I am grateful for the experience.”
I think all of us who were involved would agree that it was well worth it, not
only because the language access work itself was so successful but also
because we felt that, by contributing to the US Social Forum, we were part of
making history.
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For the most part, the Language Access Team received very positive
feedback. We heard from many different people how skilled the interpreters
were, how well the equipment worked, and how impressive it was that everything
was so well-organized. As Cindy Wiesner, who at the time was with the Miami
Workers Center and was one of the key organizers of the USSF, says: “It made a
big difference for monolingual Spanish speakers’ participation at the
Forum, because we did not summarize, we did not dumb down the political
terms, we held a high standard for the interpreters and I think it showed in the
quality of experience people had. It was one of the first events of this magnitude
that our translation and interpretation went as smoothly as it did, thanks to the
Language Access Working Group of the USSF.”
The most important feedback, however, comes from the non-English
speakers who were using the interpretation services. Guillermina Castellanos
participated in the US Social Forum representing the Women’s Collective of the
San Francisco Day Labor Program and St. Peters Housing Committee. Her first
language is Spanish. She described to me her experience using the interpreting
services at the USSF:
“The translation1 at the Social Forum was very impressive - I’m speaking
personally, of my own experience - because we understood everything that
happened, from the first meeting up until the final resolutions. We followed what
happened in all the workshops. We were very focused and we didn’t lose any of
the details. I’m speaking for myself but I’m also speaking about the various
organizations that brought members who needed translation, for example
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Technically, translation is written and interpretation is oral. It is common, however, for people to
refer to “interpretation” as “translation.”
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Mujeres Unidas y Activas [United and Active Women], the Women’s Collective
and St. Peters. We were very appreciative, very comfortable, it made us feel
really good. In that sense the Social Forum was a success for those of us who
don’t speak English because we didn’t miss anything, we understood everything
that happened.
“The translation was really good, honestly, and it’s very important
because we were demonstrating that translation wasn’t going to be missing from
an event like this. In the plenaries I liked the translation a lot. I don’t know how
they did it because it was really, really good, it was great. And I’m very honest;
when I don’t like the translation I say so, because I want to catch everything. If
the translation isn’t good, you feel left outside of the circle.
“I asked the other women and they said yes, they understood the
translation. There are always some things that are out of anyone’s hands. They
told me about one workshop that didn’t have translation. Well, there was
translation because they had the equipment and the official translators were
there, but then they formed groups. It was an activity that was part of the
workshop to form small groups and they didn’t have very many translators, so
they had to ask for someone to help translate in each of the small groups. They
asked other people to help and people tried to help with good intentions but
Spanish wasn’t their language and they couldn’t translate very well. But the rest
of the comments were very positive.
“Translation is a very important part of any convention, especially if it’s a
Social Forum, because people of different ethnicities, different races go. When
someone translates for you, it gives you the opportunity to participate. We had
the opportunity to speak, to express ourselves. We could participate and ask
questions.”
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The interpreters also have a unique perspective of what language access at the
USSF looked like on the ground. Here are some of their descriptions:
“Ninety minutes of constant simultaneous interpretation, while exhausting, made
me feel on a whole new level just why language access is vital to building an
inclusive movement to confront an unfair global economy. We want multi-cultural
panels with grassroots panelists. That means monolingual presenters and
audience members. So interpreting gives everyone access to points of view to
which they couldn't otherwise be exposed. It was very rewarding, some of the
most gratifying work I've ever done, because this sort of inclusiveness holds the
key to unlocking the sort of US and world that we've always yearned for.”
~James Ploeser, Spanish-English interpreter
“I have learned a lot by interpreting for people fighting for justice here in the USA;
from union negotiations, tenants fighting evictions in courts, political and
organizing trainings, countless issues conferences, and more! It was truly
inspiring to be able to participate in the USSF 2007 and be part of connecting
people from the Venezuelan Bolivarian Revolution to indigenous folks from
Bolivia to union organizers in Colombia to freedom fighters in the US.
This experience granted me the opportunity to be in very close proximity to the
global struggles that we are all dealing with and to many people that are working
each day to combat them through love and justice.”
~Luis Herrera, Spanish-English interpreter
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“As I participated as an interpreter in the opening and closing ceremonies and
different workshops and lectures of the United States Social Forum of 2007,
what impressed me the most was people's passion for changing what is wrong
with our civilization. Being a witness to their passion inspired me and gave me
hope for the future of humanity!”
~Belen Huizar, Spanish-English interpreter
“Interpreting at the USSF was a most rewarding experience. I was able to
network with interpreters from all over the States and have access to places that
I would have otherwise not been able to (i.e. backstage and workshops that
would have been too full to attend). I feel that volunteering at the Social Forum
allowed me to help jumpstart the social change that was instigated by the
Forum.”
~Alexis Ruiz, Spanish-English interpreter
“I think one of the most challenging (and most rewarding) moments was
interpreting into Spanish for a group of Brazilian trade unionists. We were doing
the best we could with the resources available, and the group from Brazil was
putting forth incredible effort to communicate with compañeros from around the
world.”
~Martha Benitez, Spanish-English interpreter
“Being what some would call ‘a baby interpreter,’ which means I have less than
five years experience, I found it to be so educational. I was working with
interpreters from so many different spoken languages and backgrounds. It is not
very often that I, a sign language interpreter, get that chance. Having those
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experiences in Atlanta created many memorable moments. Thanks for the
opportunity to be a part of history.”
~Andrea Myers, Sign Language -English interpreter
“Interpreting at the USSF was a wonderful experience for me. To be able to be
part of such a momentous and coming-together was very exciting. It was really
cool that the forum was bilingual (or trilingual with the sign language interpreting).
That was really powerful. The way it was set up mirrored what we want in our
society, like the process matched the product. There was something extremely
exciting and reassuring to see that progressives could organize ourselves so
well. The job of coordinating interpretation for so many panels and workshops
was huge and the whole thing was just very moving and hopeful.”
~Isaac Evans-Frantz, Spanish-English interpreter
Technology is often anything but grassroots; the interpretation equipment,
however, turned out to be a grassroots success story. Interpretation equipment is
needed for simultaneous interpreting in a large group setting: the interpreter
speaks into a microphone and the people listening to the interpretation each
have a headset through which they can hear the interpreter. Renting professional
interpretation equipment is very costly, and from the beginning of the organizing
process, our limited economic resources was one of the biggest challenges. We
did get some estimates for how much it would cost to rent the equipment that we
would need; the cheapest quote was $40,000. We also explored the possibility of
borrowing interpretation equipment from the organizations who own some, but
most organizations only own a handful of sets, we weren’t sure if the different
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kinds of equipment would be compatible with each other, and it is very expensive
to replace should anything happen to the equipment. Given this, on the first
conference call of the Language Access Working Group, I was tasked with
exploring the possibility of obtaining interpretation equipment using FM radio
waves.
Although I have a fair amount of experience as a translator and
interpreter, I didn’t know much about interpretation equipment. On top of that, I
am one of those technologically challenged people; in other words, I had no idea
what “interpretation equipment using FM technology” meant. Turns out that it is
not that complicated. It just means having a very small FM transmitter broadcast
the interpreter’s voice and people can listen on regular FM radios tuned into the
same frequency as the transmitter. It’s like a tiny radio station.
Pete Tridish of Prometheus Radio Project explains: “Prometheus stumbled
onto building interpretation equipment by accident. In our work building radio
stations with farm workers unions, we discovered the practical difficulties
that these groups encounter as they tried to build their movements and gather
allies throughout American society. People told us that they can only afford
translation equipment for special occasions, like a meeting with the mayor, but
cannot afford to rent translation equipment in day to day grassroots organizing.
And so working class communities remain separated and divided, even when
they can overcome suspicions and are ready to work together for their common
interests.” This led Prometheus to experiment with using FM transmitters and
radios - its area of expertise - for interpreting.
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Fortunately for the US Social Forum, Prometheus Radio Project agreed to
build interpretation equipment for the USSF. When we approached Prometheus,
they agreed that it was an exciting opportunity to develop inexpensive and
accessible infrastructure that could be a valuable, long-term contribution to
grassroots organizations and social movements.
Of course, something had to go wrong. One of our worst case scenarios
almost came true when the radios that Prometheus had ordered still had not
arrived the day before the USSF was to begin. After many desperate phone calls
and the local Teamsters union agreeing to open their shipping warehouse at 6
am instead of 8 am so that we could pick up the boxes of radios, the radios were
rushed to the Civic Center (where the plenaries and many of the workshops were
held) on the first day of the USSF. A group of people woke up at the crack of
dawn, gathered in the Language Access office in the basement of the Civic
Center, and formed an impromptu assembly line to cut each radio out of its
packaging, insert the batteries, test the radio, and attach the headset. We were
carrying boxes of radios up to the auditorium literally minutes before the first
morning plenary began. This embodied the spirit of doing whatever needed to be
done to make it all happen - without which, the entire USSF would not have been
possible. After that narrowly averted disaster, all the other problems that
inevitably arose during the USSF (many of which had nothing to do with the
equipment) felt minor by comparison.
During the USSF, we found that the quality of interpretation equipment
was excellent; as one person put it, “it was better than the professional
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interpretation equipment.” It cost the USSF less than half of what it would have
cost to rent the equipment, and when the Social Forum was over, all the
equipment belonged to the USSF.
We were not the only ones to notice the advantages of using this
equipment. Again, Pete Tridish: “At the USSF, we had dozens of groups ask us if
we could build them equipment like this and we are still gearing up to be able to
fill all the requests for simple, inexpensive interpretation equipment that works.
We are now looking at ways to expand our group enough to be able to make
language access equipment part of our work. We have learned just how much
grassroots groups can do with a tiny little radio station in a lunchbox that reaches
a room full of people who want to understand each other.”
Another advantage to this type of equipment is that each FM radio cost
the USSF about $10, as opposed to the interpretation headsets, which each cost
at least $100. This meant that losing a radio or two was not too big a concern
and we only asked participants for their name and phone number to use one of
the radios, whereas many events require people to leave an ID while using the
interpretation headset. Guillermina Castellanos explains the positive impact of
this arrangement: “I liked that one representative of each organization could get
the headsets for all the members of their organization. This helped us a lot
because nobody felt bad. Sometimes at this type of event they ask us for an ID to
use the headset. I understand it, because they have to take care of the
equipment which is very expensive, but it feels bad, as if they think you want to
steal it. I really liked that a representative could pick up the headsets for the
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whole group and just write down the name and telephone number of one person.
I always took three or four radios and we always collected them amongst
ourselves and turned them in.”
And in fact, regardless of the cost of each radio or headset, this system
was very effective. Not one radio was misplaced, a fact that the Language
Access Team was very proud of. The only radio that went missing turned up in
Cairo, Egypt. Alice Johnson, a member of the coordinating team who prides
herself on the fact that she has never lost any equipment at a big event like this,
had taken it with her by accident.
Lessons Learned
Overall, our biggest limitations were due to lack of capacity and lack of
experience. As mentioned above, the lack of economic resources was one of the
biggest challenges, and it was a constraint for the entire Social Forum. From the
outset, the NPC recognized the importance of multi-lingual capacity and at the
same time, the limitations of its current capacity. One goal for future Social
Forums should be to commit more resources to the language access work so
that we can expand capacity to include more languages and to cover a higher
percentage of the events taking place at the USSF.
And like everybody else who was organizing a US Social Forum for the
first time, the Language Access Team had a lot to learn along the way. In
addition to the many practical things that we learned, the most important lesson
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for the future was that language access has to be part of the conversation from
the very beginning of the organizing process and treated with importance at
every step along the way. Cindy Wiesner says: “We have to figure out before
hand and not as an after-thought: the resources, the team of qualified
interpreters, the necessary equipment, the time to translate documents, and
overall the commitment of the organizers to equalize the space, as best as
possible, by creating language access for the participants.”
If we increase the financial resources devoted to multi-lingual capacity and
integrate language access into the organizing process early on, we should be
able to provide high quality translation and interpretation in more languages and
in more spaces.
One of the most significant impacts of the language access work at the
USSF was to demonstrate that it’s necessary and possible to build multi-lingual
movements. As Jane Sung E Bai says: “As a movement, we are still
experimenting on a localized level. The 2007 USSF was the first attempt to take
on this challenge on a national level. We may have fell short of where we need to
be, but we definitely set a strong foundation on which to build.” Cindy Wiesner
agrees: “We had some shortcomings, but overall I think it created a standard for
movement-building spaces.”
The real success of the US Social Forum will only be seen with time: in
the ripple effects created in the individuals, organizations and communities who
participated. Guillermina Castellanos also spoke to me about what she and other
members of her organization took away from the USSF:
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“The translation was also very important to me because I had to come
back here, to my community, and share what we had learned. That was why it
was so important to take in as much as we could, all the resolutions, the
plenaries, all the most important points. At the end of each day, after the evening
plenary, we would go to the hotel and get together, those of us from the
Women’s Collective and the Day Labor Program and we would share what we
learned in all the workshops that we had been to that day. The information was
very clear because the translation was so good. This helped us in organizing the
workshops that we gave when we returned: we could do it in our own words, our
own language.
“We learned about borders, about walls. It’s amazing how much you can
learn from the Palestinians. There are other borders besides the border between
Mexico and the United States that we didn’t even know existed. We identified
with them. Since it was [translated into] your own language, you can identify with
these people.
“We learned that there are many things that affect all of us, people of
different races and also sexual orientations, at all levels. We left with a different
perspective. I say this because I heard it from other people. There was one
woman who used to say bad things about lesbians and gays. In one workshop I
heard this same woman say, ‘Oh, I didn’t know that they suffered just like we do.
I’m going to change my way of thinking.’
“We covered all of this in the workshops when we got back home. We did
workshops in the Women’s Collective and in St. Peters. Of the four organizations
that I know well, all of them organized workshops within their own organizations
when they returned. Since we understood everything, we could bring back good
information.
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“The women that went learned a lot. It also opened up space for personal
empowerment because they came back with more desire to work in our
community. The Social Forum raised a lot of consciousness and we arrived with
more energy to continue the struggle.”
Perhaps that’s what Steve Williams meant when he said, “Translation and
interpretation helped the USSF to achieve its political objectives.”
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