Last Thursday, I had the pleasure of participating in one of Equality Virginia's Crowd the Capitol events, and joined them for their Families and LGBTQ Youth lobby day. I often interpret for Spanish-speaking LGBTQ youth and their parents, especially in mental health settings. In the process of carrying out my role as an interpreter at different facilities, I do my best to work with providers...
This past Thursday, January 9, I participated in Drive Virginia Forward's lobby day for driver's licenses for all at the state capital. At this time, undocumented Virginia residents cannot be issued a driver's license, which has a huge negative impact on their lives. As I detailed in a previous article, many undocumented Virginians rely on raiteros for rides, who can be highly unreliable and...
With all the agencies I work with, it's difficult to keep track of all the details. How do I invoice this particular agency? Does this agency require a signature for every assignment? Do they pay mileage? How much do they pay per mile? Is there a mileage minimum? Even someone as well-organized as I am doesn't have the ability to remember all these details, especially if I only accept an...
Unfortunately, I have had many a patient disclose to me that healthcare professionals, including interpreters have made disparaging remarks or not interpreted in an impartial fashion. Any patient can experience such judgment as the result of the personal biases of any member of their healthcare team, and it can have especially serious consequences for the LEP (limited English proficient) patient...
Last night I attended a panel discussion presented by Equality Virginia called “Ask a Trans Person.” As the founder of the Facebook group Queer-Friendly Interpreters and Translators, I decided I needed to go, whether it be for networking or just jotting down some notes that may answer some questions my group members may have. Whether we like it or not, as interpreters we will likely interpret...
Discussions about LGBT+ topics with other interpreters are more and more frequently revolving around gender. Some interpreters find interpreting for patients who are non-cisgender to be difficult to wrap their heads around. Furthermore, if you are a native speaker of a historically gendered language, breaking free from that linguistic gender binary may seem like an insurmountable task...
It happened to me again today. This time there was a scheduling snafu and I was assigned to one child and another interpreter was assigned to the sibling. The mother began to share with the both of us that she didn’t know it was her right to have an interpreter provided to her and her children until very recently. She expressed that she sees flyers all the time in tiendas latinas...
Mental health interpretation is not usually considered a specialty apart, but rather incorporated into medical interpreting as a whole. I believe that this isn’t a wise way to go about providing mental health interpreting services to patients, as many medical interpreters starting out are often blindsided by mental health interpreting assignments with little to no preparation. Most 40-hour...
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I am a Certified Medical/Healthcare Interpreter (CMI-Spanish, CHI-Spanish) and a medical interpreter trainer. I work as an independent contractor in the greater Richmond, Virginia area as a Spanish-English medical interpreter. Click here to read more about me.
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