Lauren Ray

This is a bi-weekly summary of translation and language justice news and events. What are you reading this week? Feel free to comment & share!

• There’s theory and there’s practice. Reading first-hand accounts of on-the-job experiences from translators and interpreters is a fantastic way to grow in one’s craft. A Case for Spanglish details one interpreter’s experiences with and strategies for interpreting Spanglish in medical and court settings.
• Here is another call for submissions, this time from Alchemy: A Journal of Translation.
• Check out ¡Pinche Gringo!, a short and engaging read about the entertaining and varied origin stories for the word, gringo.
• I love these suggestions for how to make introductions from How I Build Bridges. One of the things that years of experience in community organizing have taught me is that strength comes in numbers—from our rootedness in a network of spaces and communities—and that one of our most important tasks lies in nourishing the links that bind together our many worlds. However, it’s not always clear how to connect people to one another. This post has great suggestions, from a professional vantage point, for making introductions via email.
• I’m writing a longer post on the debate over independent contractor status in the US, but for now, I’ll just share this update in the ongoing legal and political battle. The Biden administration is working on new rules (which will apply at the federal level only) for classifying workers as either employees or independent contractors.
• I consider myself a bit of a “second-career translator” (or, more accurately, a third- or fourth-career translator, but that’s for another post), so I enjoyed the insights shared in this interview with Aneesa Abbas Higgins. In particular, her advice is that “There is no such thing as the right way to go about becoming a translator, and there are many different ways of being a good or successful translator. The experiences gained from a lifetime of reading and pursuing other professions are invaluable assets.”