Interpreter, educator and union activist Fanny Suárez
By Fanny Suárez
I’m addressing you as someone who’s leaving a profession which I love and to which I’ve dedicated myself fully for 16 years. I’d like to share with you several lessons I learned.
We went through a protracted struggle to elevate court interpreting to the professional level required to guarantee equal access to justice for limited English speakers in our legal system. It’s been a drawn-out struggle to which many of us lent our hearts and souls during all these years. I’m proud of our many achievements, but I’m also afraid that court interpreters and the communities we serve face a hard road ahead that threatens to undermine these important gains. It will be up to the colleagues I’m leaving behind and the new ones entering the ranks to continue this critical struggle; it will be up to the courts to take heed and grant language access issues the attention they merit.
I began interpreting in the California courts in 1998 after graduating from San Francisco State University’s Legal Interpreting Program and becoming court certified. Excited to begin my new career, I reported to work at the San Francisco Superior Court to find my new colleagues mobilizing and demonstrating to gain recognition as court employees. Interpreters had been working in California courts for years without benefits _ no health insurance, no pension, no paid time off, no collective bargaining rights and no protections. It was my first day on the job and I was fighting for the rights interpreters fully deserved but had been denied: those of other workers in the courts.
Still, my love of interpreting grew. I pursued a second certificate program at the Agnese Haury Institutes for Interpretation, joined the faculty at San Francisco State’s Legal Interpreting Program and obtained a master’s degree in bilingual legal interpreting at the College of Charleston by completing coursework over three summers. When I returned to the San Francisco courts after my last summer away, I celebrated the implementation of the courts’ first interpreter employment system, governed by a solid collective bargaining agreement.
Despite this pivotal victory, the courts denied that I had been a regular contractor and offered me only an as-needed job. From Day One as a bona fide employee, I had to fight for a fixed schedule and benefits all over again at the court where I had worked consistently for years.
That’s when the fledgling California Federation of Interpreters stepped in: It was only as a result of the union’s strident intervention and the cooperation of my colleagues that I was finally granted a part-time assignment with benefits.
CFI’s achievements inspired me to take a leave of absence and work as a staff representative, and I have worked on behalf of our union _ either as a staffer or volunteer _ ever since. I can tell you that it’s never stopped being an uphill battle: Court interpreters have had to fight for every measly gain in wages and working conditions.
San Francisco Interpreters Avelina Pritchard, Fanny Suarez and others picket outside the Hall of Justice.
CFI proposed that courts adopt strong provisions for team interpreting as early as 2007. Today even counties that hadn’t provided team interpreting in the past have recognized its importance as an industry standard and are finally beginning to institute it — due almost exclusively to CFI’s perseverance. And just last year, thanks to widespread mobilizing by our members and the determination of our bargaining committee, we obtained a wage increase in the coastal Northern California region after 7 years without so much as a cost of living adjustment — something many told us was impossible.
It’s been incredibly rewarding to see CFI members develop into a strong, engaged community that’s played such a critical role in elevating court interpreting into a serious profession and a gainful career.
Nonetheless, I’m deeply disconcerted by several developments indicating the courts are now turning back the clock on the significant improvements to language access. California courts continue withholding interpretation services for parties in civil matters, even though with some better coordination we could have been covering many of these cases using interpreters already on staff . Additionally, the California legislature has consistently provided sufficient funding to expand interpreter services only to have it redirected elsewhere _ contrary to their intent _ or to sit there unused. It’s taken an investigation by the Department of Justice and the threat of losing federal funding to finally convince California courts to comply with federal mandates to provide interpreters for Limited English Proficient (LEP) parties in all types of court cases — something that California court administrators are only now preparing to do and have yet to implement.
Meanwhile, California courts are taking an aggressive and foolhardy stance in their promotion of Video Remote Interpreting (VRI), in which interpreters work remotely. Courts in parts of the state are readying to launch VRI without adequate limits on the types of situations in which it is used, and without the required technological standards or consideration of its impacts on due process. This deteriorates the quality of language access, effectively creating a two-tiered system of justice that threatens the life and liberty of LEP communities.
These developments bring up a number of questions: Why do California courts deem it necessary to turn back the clock on 30 years of hard-fought improvements in language access — improvements that had established California an example for the rest of the nation — and deteriorate the quality of interpreting at a time when more young professionals are entering the field? Why are the courts pushing for VRI at a time when the interpreter employment system’s innovative cross-assignment provisions provide a reliable pool of competent interpreters capable of covering assignments in different parts of the state? With so many language access experts available to the courts, why is there no plan to collaboratively create desperately needed training opportunities to fulfill ongoing needs for interpreters in languages of lesser diffusion?
Given the imminent expansion of language access services to civil courtrooms, why are there no projects to train judges, attorneys and other court personnel and address impediments as simple as the lack of adequate scheduling and coordination of staff interpreters and as complex as how to eliminate the inherent obstacles to equal justice for persons with limited English skills?
Personally, the courts’ utter disregard of interpreters’ essential role in the administration of justice and their stubborn resistance to providing the basic conditions needed to guarantee the viability of court interpreting as a career robbed me of the motivation to continue working within its family. I’m afraid of how many other highly skilled interpreters may follow me out the door in the coming years.
This is a critical time for California courts, during which they should be taking measures to attract and retain more professional interpreters, not alienate them. Today, many interpreters are older, have worked for the courts for decades and will soon retire, with only a fraction of the service credit they deserve. While more programs capable of training new interpreters exist today, the courts aren’t doing what they need to attract and retain these new workers. Salaries for court interpreters are not on a par with those of other court professionals whose vocations demand similar or even less preparation. Court interpreters are the only court workers who do not receive wage steps that reward employees for professional development and years on the job.
Courts can and need to institute measures to bring about greater improvements in the quality of the language access services they provide. California courts should offer opportunities for interpreters to work on different types of cases on a regular basis, and develop strategies for seasoned court interpreters close to retirement to pass on their expertise to the next generation. They should institute standard operating procedures, such as maintaining the same interpreter team throughout trials as much as possible and making available case documents to interpreters ahead of time so that they can better prepare for assignments. They should do a better job of maintaining strong professional and ethical standards for court interpreting as well as for the translation of documents and recordings to be brought as evidence in legal proceedings and train judges and other judicial officers on these matters in particular. Finally, they should afford interpreters opportunities to advance into management positions and to collaborate on the ground level in the development, expansion and improvement of our justice system’s language access policies.
Bargaining Committee members Katy Van Sant, Fanny Suarez, Mary Lou Aranguren, Kate Bancroft and Andy Ta.
I encourage the California courts to grant the court interpreting profession the distinction it merits and work collaboratively with these highly skilled language access professionals in the interest of ensuring meaningful access to justice for all.
My experience as interpreter will most certainly impact my continued professional development. I am very thankful to all the colleagues who came before me and gave me the opportunity to grow as the profession developed. Thank you for your vision, your guidance and most of all, your tenacity.
I encourage those who have recently entered the ranks to take on leadership roles and continue to grow the profession. Know that without your efforts the profession and the communities you serve will likely not be able to overcome today’s challenges.
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Fanny Suárez is an interpreter, educator and union activist who has left her job at the San Francisco courts to start a career as an bilingual investigator with the Contra Costa Public Defender.
