An Introduction to Language Justice
Language justice is something I think about a lot these days. I hadn’t even heard of it until 2016, when I moved to North Carolina and began formally training and working as a translator and interpreter. That’s when I took courses at the Wayside Center for Social Justice and the Center for New North Carolinians at UNC Greensboro.
At the Wayside Center training, I learned from legendary folks like Roberto Tijerina about what language justice is, and why it matters, and how to do language service work with that lens. For a lot of us who’ve done interpreting over the years, sometimes over informal dinners, sometimes in an office job where we were called on to do more because we’re bilingual, sometimes with relatives in doctor’s offices, etc., we may have had a deep sense of the need for language justice, even if we didn’t know the term.
Language justice goes beyond access. Access is saying, “We have interpretation available if you fill out a form two weeks in advance of your appointment,” or “You’re welcome to bring your own interpreter,” or “We ran this confidentiality agreement through Google translate!” These things are more gestures than welcoming arms that tell people they can use the language they’re most comfortable with, without any extra rigamarole.
“Language justice goes beyond access.”
We know that the answer to, “Do you speak English?” can be a complicated one. Sometimes it depends on the day, the context, or the topic. So language justice is about making it easy for people to get what they need, and even change their mind about it. It’s not cursory. It’s well thought-out. Instead of saying at the beginning of a meeting, “If you don’t understand English, select the channel for Spanish,” you might say, “If you prefer to listen and participate in Spanish, choose the channel for Spanish.”
That way, it’s a positive instead of a negative, not a statement pointing out a deficiency. We interpreters aren’t there to police anyone for not being “perfect” about how they go about creating a multilingual space, but we’re doing advocacy when we do the work of translating and interpreting by seeking to give everyone the same experience regardless of language. We’re the welcoming arms!
“So language justice is about making it easy for people to get what they need, and even change their mind about it. It’s not cursory. It’s well thought-out.”
When I try to describe this, I often think of a cartoon I saw once depicting equality versus equity. Here it is:
Interaction Institute for Social Change | Artist: Angus Maguire
Language justice is a way of achieving equity. It’s not just saying, “everyone is the same here,” but instead, about acknowledging differences and making difference OK. Everyone is different, but everyone can have the support they need to enjoy the game on their terms.
“Language justice is a way of achieving equity. It’s not just saying, “everyone is the same here,” but instead, about acknowledging differences and making difference OK.”
And because I’m a mom of toddlers, I must say I hope that little kid doesn’t fall off the stack of boxes in the image! You can tell they’re having fun! It reminds me of taking my youngest son to minor league baseball games when he was 1-2 years old, and we used to sit on the steep little lawn, and he would run up and down, working on his balance and the strength in his legs (as I tried not to constantly shout, “be careful!”). It’s fun to see a little person grow and enjoy what their expanding world has to offer.
I still have a lot to learn about justice issues, including disability justice, which is something I’ve had to consider when interpreting for people who are blind. We assume a lot. A picture is worth a thousand words—if you can see it! I’ve noticed a lot of people doing image descriptions in blogs and describing how they look when they introduce themselves in meetings where we have ASL interpreters present.
In that spirit, I’ll describe the image above.
On the left, three people of varying heights are standing behind a fence where there’s a baseball game going on, and each is standing on a box to help them see but the one on the right is still too short to see over the fence. On the right, the scene is repeated but everyone can see over the fence and enjoy the game because the shortest person has two boxes to stand on, and the tallest one doesn’t have any boxes at all because they can see over without them.
As a mom of short individuals, I hate it when the sink and the soap dispenser are too high for kids to reach in a public bathroom. In an equity situation, there’s a stool for them to use so they can reach.
Language justice is like that; you can be big or small, but you still get to wash your hands (without even having to carry around your own stool). It’s just easy to participate. Everybody benefits, when you think about it, because everyone has clean hands and can freely high-five one another!
That’s just my take on it. You’re welcome to chime in and let us know what language justice is to you, or what questions you may have about how to achieve it.
