Lawmakers set aside money to help Indigenous language interpreters get certified - Idahocapitalsun.com
Bethany Fisher was raised in the Marshall Islands, the daughter of American missionaries who spoke English at home but who insisted that she and her siblings speak the Indigenous language of the island republic everywhere else.
The parental say-so proved smart when the family returned to the United States. With the fluency they gained as children, Fisher and her sister Anna followed their mother, Barb, into careers as interpreters serving Marshallese speakers who have migrated to America in recent decades.
As many as half of the estimated 60,000 Marshallese speakers in the world live in the U.S., with large populations clustered in Arkansas, Hawaii, Oklahoma, Oregon and Washington.
Although the Fishers have been able to build careers out of their specialized knowledge of an Indigenous language, many interpreters of such languages struggle to piece together good-paying work in the United States. That’s despite a desperate need for interpreters who speak what are often known as languages of lesser diffusion, especially those spoken in the United States by migrants from Mexico and Central and South America.
But some states are beginning to pay more attention to access to interpreters for such languages, including at least one — Oregon — that is creating a program to certify interpreters. Across the nation, interpreters with skills in such languages are organizing in collectives to fill gaps in coverage, particularly in federal immigration courts or detention centers and in health care settings.