The Language Justice Commission of the caravan is committed to making the caravan a bilingual space where everyone is comfortable speaking in the language of their choice so that we can all best express our truths, build strong connections, and build a stronger movement for peace with justice and dignity. The caravan would not be what it is, nor have the impact it does, without great English/Spanish interpretation.
Our interpretation team is led at all times by two experienced social justice interpreters who are generously donating their valuable professional services. Catalina Nieto will be with the caravan the entire time. For the first two weeks the second interpreter will be from the language justice collaborative Antena, and for week three from the CaracolInterpretersCooperative.
Indoor events will be done with simultaneous interpretation. Thanks to the generosity of Antena, we have two BabelBox transmitters and 150 receivers. Outdoor events will be interpreted consecutively from the stage.
We also have a team of volunteers in red vests and/or armbands who can do informal one on one consecutive interpreting in the crowd before and after to foster more interactions. Any of these volunteers can be approached for interpretation for the media and they will connect the press with the strongest available interpreter.
Interpreters are generously donating their services. We do however have travel and equipment costs to cover for interpreting and would very much appreciate dedicated support for this. You can simply put “for interpretation” in the memo line of checks to the caravan, or if donatingonlinehere, please follow up with an email to Kirsten [at] global exchange [dot] org letting her know to set aside those funds.
We would also, of course, very much appreciate the volunteer support and participation of experienced local interpreters. If you are interested or know interpreters who are, please be in touch with us as soon as possible by emailing Sara (Sara (at) Spanishforsocialchange <dot> com). Please also email Sara if you are a local organizer and would like to discuss interpretation arrangements.
We also ask you to support the interpreters who are donating their services to the caravan by hiring them in the future.
Our volunteer caravan interpreters are:
Catalina Nieto is generously donating her professional interpretation services for the entire month of the caravan. Catalina is a community organizer, popular educator, Spanish/English interpreter and artist. Since Catalina’s arrival to the United States from Colombia in 2000, she has organized with the immigrant rights and Latin American solidarity movements. Catalina works as a Spanish/English interpreter and as a multi-lingual justice trainer and popular educator. She has worked as the National Grassroots Organizer with the Latin American solidarity organization Witness for Peace, and as the Education Director with the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition. Catalina has also interned at the Highlander Center for Popular Education and at the Chicago ENLACE Partnership. Catalina graduated in 2011 with a M.A. in Social Justice and Intercultural Relations from SIT Graduate Institute. She holds a B.A. in Sociology and a B.A. in Communications, Media and Theater from Northeastern Illinois University.
Recent Interpretation work done by Catalina:
Interpreter and interpretation team coordinator, National Domestic Worker Alliance Congress, Washington, DC
Co-trainer, Interpretation for Social Justice Popular Education Training, Durham, NC
Interpreter, Southeast Immigrants Rights Network Annual Conference, Raleigh, NC
Interpreter, Breaking Barriers, Building Power Training, Wayside Center for Popular Education, Faber, VA
Co-trainer, Interpretation for Social Justice Popular Education Training, Wayside Center for Popular Education, Faber, VA
Interpreter, The National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce Creating Change Conference, Baltimore, MD
Catalina’s Contact Information:
s.catalina.nieto@gmail.com
Antena, a language justice and language experimentation collaborative, is generously supporting the work of the Caravan by providing interpreting for the first two weeks of the caravan (Jen Hofer from Tijuana to Santa Fe, John Pluecker from Santa Fe to Houston), donating the use of their simultaneous interpreting equipment (two Babel Box transmitters and 150 receivers) for the entire month, and establishing systems and doing organizing work to make the entire caravan a bilingual space.
Antena is a language justice collaborative founded in 2010 by Jen Hofer and John Pluecker, both of whom are writers, artists, literary translators, bookmakers and activist interpreters. Antena views our aesthetic practice as part and parcel of our language justice work. Antena activates links between social justice work and artistic practice by exploring how critical views on language can help us to reimagine and rearticulate the worlds we inhabit. Antena works with organizations, communities and individuals to create dynamic, well-functioning multilingual spaces for small and large groups of people to foster open communication and attentive listening across languages and cultures. We primarily work with Spanish and English but have experience coordinating more diverse language combinations. Some of the organizations we have worked with are the US Social Forum, Critical Ethnic Studies @ UC Riverside, the National Immigration Law Center, Project Row Houses, Political Equator and more.
For more information on Antena or to talk with us about working together, renting equipment or building multilingual spaces, feel free to email antena@antenaantena.org.
Here is a video of Jen Hofer interpreting for Javier Sicilia on Democracy Now!
Alexandra García will be one of the core interpreters for the third week of the caravan, traveling from Houston to New York. Alexandra is an organizer,arts administrator and Spanish/ English interpreter, network facilitator, media maker and skilled relationship builder committed to social justice.
Alexandra is an organizer with New York Communities for Change (NYCC) with the Workplace Justice campaign that demands fair wages and just work conditions for immigrant workers in Brooklyn and city-wide. She’s in charge of building alliances of neighbors,clergy and communities to organize for immigrant workers’ rights. Prior to her work with NYCC, she was Adult Public Programs Manager at El Museo del Barrio NY and created educational public programs for adults in literary and performing arts, film and video. She also worked as a community organizer at the Queens Museum of Art with the public programs department and the Heart of Corona coalition that creates programs for the betterment of the neighborhood. She studied community development, social communications and media in her native Ecuador at the Universidad Politécnica Salesiana and has lived in the United States intermittently for the past 10 years. While in Ecuador, she was part of an arts and social media collective called La Pepa. Her work in New York for the past 4 years has focused on community organizing, civic engagement and cultural programming.She is an active volunteer in immigrant and workers’ rights organizations like Make the Road NY and Domestic Workers United and is an active member of NYC Community Farm worker Alliance that works in solidarity with the Coalition of Immokalee workers in Florida.
She is an Ecuadorian immigrant born and raised in Quito. She currently lives in Flatbush Brooklyn, loves blackberry (mora) juice, dancing cumbia, eating salted baked squid in chinatown and crossing NYC bridges on her bike.
Alexandra recently joined the core membership of the newly formed Caracol Interpreters Cooperative, a new initiative to ignite language justice in NYC and beyond.
About the Caracol Interpreters cooperative:
Mission
The Caracol Interpreters Cooperative opens multilingual channels of communication to ignite language justice in our community. We envision a world where English is not the dominant language of the world and where language is not a barrier to communication, no matter the space or time.
Description
We are the Caracol Interpreters Cooperative. We believe that the languages we use are intimately connected with who we are, our thoughts, our emotions, our dreams, our cultures, our passions, our politics… everything. We work to create inclusive multilingual spaces where each of us may feel free to bring our whole self into the room.
Products
We provide both interpretation and translation services (U.S. English — Latin American Spanish); coordination of interpretation and/or translation for meetings and events; and consulting services for organizations wishing to expand their multilingual capacity.
Recent Interpretation work done by Alexandra :
Interpreter at La Fuente/ NY Civic Participation Project, Leadership Institute, NY
Interpreter at NYCC / WASH NY action to demand back wages at Hi-Tek Carwash Brighton Beach, NY
Interpreter at the press conference of the National Day of Action for Low Wage workers, NY
Interpretation coordination at the National Day of Action clergy coalition meeting, NY
Interpreter at the New Sanctuary Coalition General Assembly, NY
Interpreter at the Leadership Institute of Make the Road NY
Interpreter at the North East Dialogue for Human Rights, Philadelphia
Interpreter at National Domestic Worker Alliance Congress, NY
Contact Information:
caracol.interpreters@gmail.com
marialgarcia@gmail.com
