Growing up fluently bilingual is a beneficial life skill. However, from the perspective of students with family members who only speak their native language, being the only person to understand both languages can be difficult.
Going along with parents to hospital visits and appointments is usually a waiting room experience for kids with fluent English speaking parents. However, for people like senior Maria Sanchez, going to hospital visits and appointments can be a nerve-racking experience.
Sanchez is the go-to translator for her parents, which can be a tedious task to handle. In a hospital setting, English medical terms are normally directed toward patients after a diagnosis is given.
For Sanchez and many other teenage translators, however, they must translate the diagnosis to their parents in a way that they are able to formulate and understand the information given. Students must learn to translate at a young age in order to help their parents comprehend what other people are saying.
Another major responsibility Sanchez faces is helping her parents fill out legal documents and applications. For child translators, not every word is clearly defined in different languages, which often leads to miscommunications or having to search for the correct term in a family’s native language.
“I feel under pressure when it comes to translating because my parents expect me to be a professional translator since I attend school, and sometimes I find it difficult and they don’t understand that,” Sanchez says
Along with translating comes judgment. Videos on social media have shown the anger certain people have towards non-English speaking parents with their children.
Senior Zitlali Jimenez has experienced this tension first hand while trying to translate information to her mother.
“A woman approached my mom and I while I was trying to translate some information to my mom and the woman started saying really hateful things to us about our language,” Jimenez says. “My mom and I decided it wasn’t worth arguing and quietly walked away from the situation.”
Translating through the language barrier is not the only thing that migrant families have to work around. The cultural difference is also a difficulty families face.
Merging into American culture comes with complications and misunderstandings.
“My mom still doesn’t understand the culture of the kids in America and tries to always encourage me to participate in activities that bring me back to our roots,” Jimenez says.
Students with parents who speak only one language face these challenges in their everyday lives. From a young age they learn to mature quickly and rapidly learn new ways of communication in order to help their parents live a semi normal life in a country they are unfamiliar with.