Best of Both Words is a newsletter for language workers, community organizations, neighbors and kinfolk about the evolving landscape of language justice. It is a space for connections, contradictions, and refusing binary, either/or thinking when it comes to language and the social relations that languages express. It dives into what makes languages so charming and so maddening. It explores translation as a philosophy, a practice, an act of abolition, and a form of labor. Best of Both Words discusses what language justice can be and how people are working to build it.

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This month I’ve been thinking a lot about the relationship between climate crises and language justice. 

It doesn’t take much browsing to find news of climate events touching almost every corner of the globe. The Canadian wildfires (currently standing at 1,054 active wildfires) have upended lives, burned millions of acres of land, and placed millions of people under air safety and evacuation alerts since early summer. Extreme heat advisories have been a daily occurrence for large swaths of the US. The deadly wildfires in Maui have devoured lives, homes, and historic sites. 

In disasters, access to multilingual news and emergency information can mean the difference between life and death, between resilience and devastation.

There is a growing effort to compel government agencies to make disaster and emergency information available in multiple languages. But that can replicate one-way power dynamics. Often, institutions still control the resources and information, set language standards that reproduce a lack of access, and offer translator/interpreter pay at rock-bottom rates. Bureaucracy and institutional discrimination hamper meaningful change, while multilingual communities remain divided and excluded from conversations about their own health and wellbeing.

Language justice proposes a different orientation: grassroots, multi-directional communication where communities have access to and control of decision-making before, during, and after disasters strike. Building this from the ground up would entail training community language workers who can translate and interpret. It would mean decentralizing power so that disaster planning occurs in community centers, apartment complexes, schools, etc. In other words, it would take place where affected people live and work, in the languages they feel at home in, and by centering their priorities and expertise.

In embracing language justice, we can redefine disaster preparedness and response in a transformative way. By nurturing a network of community language workers and claiming power, disaster planning can begin to take on a different meaning and role within affected communities. This not only ensures that communication is multi-directional but also empowers people to shape their own destinies in times of crisis.

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In other news… 

For South Asians, Language Access Plays a Crucial Role in Reproductive Justice

For too long, South Asian communities have been impacted by damaging narratives surrounding abortion, perpetuating model minority stereotypes and misconceptions about… [Read More]

Sharing Speech: On Translation as Conversation

Robin Myers writes about her experience of migrating to Mexico City and coming to translate Spanish poetry… [Read More]

Translating Children’s Picture Books

With so few words, most of them kid-friendly, it should be a piece of cake. But it depends on who’s holding the whisk… [Read More]

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Translations in the spotlight…

Poem for Children with Trouble Sleeping

By Jean D’Amérique / Translated from Haitian Creole by Nathan H. Dize

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Próximamente se publicará la versión en español.