Found in Translation

From Nataly Kelly
I sincerely thank my parents, Steven and Linda Fletcher and my husband’s
parents, Henry and Mary Kelly, as well as Judith Walcott, Darryl Morris,
Katrina Kosec, Richard Smith, Marjory Bancroft, Katharine Allen, Heather
Rassi, Darci Graves, and Laura Rittmuller for your support and guidance.
Helen Kim, thank you for instilling in me an appreciation for other languages
and cultures from the time I was just a toddler. Your influence shaped who I
am. To my colleagues at Common Sense Advisory—Tahar Bouhafs, Don
DePalma, Melissa Gillespie, Simona Bertozzi, Benjamin Sargent, Rebecca
Ray, Vijayalaxmi Hegde, Marc Jeton, Bill Ameral, Anna Abgaryan, and Tuba
Aytug—thank you so much for your encouragement. Most of all, I thank my
beloved husband, Brian Kelly. Your support and love never fail to sustain me,
and you always inspire me to do more. Fil duine frismad buide lemm díuterc,
día tibrinn in mbith mbuide, huile, huile cid díupert.
From Jost Zetzsche
I would like to thank my wife, Kristen, without whom I would not have a voice.

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NOTES
Chapter 1: Saving Lives and Protecting Rights in Translation
1
. For more details on the case of Willie Ramirez, see Gail Price-Wise, “Language, Culture, and
Medical Tragedy: The Case of Willie Ramirez,” Health Affairs, November 19, 2008;
http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2008/11/19/language-culture-and-medical-tragedy-the-case-of-willie-
ramirez.
2
. Parkview Community Hospital was fined $50,000 by the California Department of Public Health
(CDPH) for failing to provide the patient with proper informed consent, which led to the removal of
the healthy kidney. See the full description of the CDPH administrative fine at
www.cdph.ca.gov/Pages/NR10-036.aspx.
3
. For more information on the costs of not providing medical interpreters, see Leighton Ku and Glenn
Flores, “Pay Now or Pay Later: Providing Interpreter Services in Health Care,” Health Affairs 24 ,
no. 2 (March 2005); http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/24 /2/4 35.full.
4
. See Craig Bowron, “A Simple Question Leads to Answers in Medical Mystery,” MinnPost, February
28, 2008; www.minnpost.com/politics-policy/2008/02/simple-question-leads-answers-medical-
mystery.
5
. To read the full details of the study, see Ann D. Bagchi, Stacy Dale, Natalya Verbitsky-Savitz, Sky
Andrecheck, Kathleen Zavotsky, and Robert Eisenstein, “Examining Effectiveness of Medical
Interpreters in Emergency Departments for Spanish-Speaking Patients with Limited English
Proficiency: Results of a Randomized Controlled Trial,” Annals of Emergency Medicine 57, no. 3
(March 2011); the abstract is available at www.annemergmed.com/article/S0196-
064 4 %2810%2900557-3/abstract.
6
. To see a graphic that was published in the New York Times and traces the discovery of the disease in
Mexico, visit www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2009/05/02/health/0502-health-timeline.ready.html?
ref=health.
7
. The examples from the Tampa Tribune can be found at
www.amtaweb.org/AMTA2006/AMTA_2006-08-06.pdf.
8
. The quotes from the text messages between emergency personnel and translators in Haiti can be
found at www.robertmunro.com/research/Munro_AMTA.pdf.
9
. Quotes provided by Rob Munro in an interview the authors conducted in May 2011.
10
. The quote from U.S. Marine Clark Craig on the success of Mission 4 636 can be found at
www.mission4 636.org/some-positive-feedback.
11
. See Peter Dizekes, “A Champion of Creole,” MITnews, May 12, 2001;
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/profile-degraff-0512.html.
12
. Some argue that North Korea should not be considered monolingual either because it does
occasionally have other languages spoken within its borders. For listings of languages spoken in each
country in the world, visit Ethnologue, www.ethnologue.com.
13
. See “Language Use and English Speaking Ability: 2000,” a U.S. Census Bureau Brief;
www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-29.pdf.
14
. The Indigenous Language Institute provides extensive information on North American native
languages. See www.ilinative.org/index.html.

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15
. See Julie Siebens and Tiffany Julian, “Native North American Languages Spoken at Home in the
United States and Puerto Rico: 2006–2010,” U.S. Census Bureau, December 2011;
www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/acsbr10-10.pdf.
16
. To read the full text of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, visit
www.justice.gov/crt/about/cor/coord/titlevi.php.
17
. In 1780, John Adams led an effort to establish an official academy devoted to English, but his effort
was opposed because his fellow Founding Fathers viewed the move as incompatible with core
democratic principles. In general, establishing a national official language has been viewed as
antidemocratic because it would be in conflict with the constitutional guarantee of due process and
equal protection. The American Civil Liberties Union has published a paper further detailing such
reasons, available at www.aclu.org/immigrants-rights/aclu-backgrounder-english-only-policies-
congress.
18
. Examples of Title VI violations in the United States related to language access are too numerous to
list. A report titled “Language Access in State Courts” from the Brennan Center for Justice showed
that the majority of state courts do not guarantee individuals the right to an interpreter despite the fact
that this violates federal law. To read the full report, see Laura Abel, “Language Access in State
Courts,” July 4 , 2009; www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/language_access_in_state_courts.
19
. See Corine Buscher, “Why the Swiss Accepted Tibetans with Open Arms,” Swissinfo.ch;
www.swissinfo.ch/eng/politics/Why_the_Swiss_accepted_Tibetans_with_open_arms.html?
cid=864 3062.
20
. See “Dalai Lama Thanks Switzerland for Support,” April 9, 2010;
www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=27082&t=1.
21
. For full listings of refugee populations around the world, visit the UN refugee agency website at
www.unhcr.org/pages/4 9c364 6c4 d6.html.
22
. See Tracy A. Schroepfer, Angela Waltz, Hyunjin Noh, Jacqueline Matloub, and Viluck Kue,
“Seeking to Bridge Two Cultures: The Wisconsin Hmong Cancer Experience,” Journal of Cancer