Guadalajara (Mexico), February 21 (EFE).- Indigenous people in Mexico denounce this International Mother Language Day that when they migrate to cities they face a shortage of interpreters of their language into Spanish, which can make the difference between life and death in a hospital, defend once morest accusations of crimes or delay procedures.
Juana Facundo Rodríguez, an interpreter of the Otomi language, told EFE this Wednesday that when she arrived 25 years ago in Guadalajara, the third most populated city in the country, she experienced the discrimination, indifference and poor attention that indigenous people face in large cities.
Facundo Rodríguez left her native Santiago Mexquititlán with basic knowledge of Spanish, a language that her mother did not speak either, and both suffered difficulty finding a house, going to a clinic or doing school paperwork.
“She didn’t understand Spanish very well, fortunately many of us (her children) already knew how to speak, we supported her, but it was difficult for her to find a public school for her children, medical services for her family. They told her ‘ma’am, we don’t understand you,'” she said.
With these experiences behind her, she decided to be an interpreter of her language to help her community and she is one of the few that does this work, since the majority of government institutions lack someone to help indigenous people request services.
“In matters of health and education, on many occasions there are no interpreters, they do not understand us, many of us who come from our communities still do not know how to speak Spanish well and that is the main need, why we need someone who know how to talk to the corresponding authorities,” he said.
Insufficient help
The National Institute of Indigenous Languages (Inali) registers more than 7.3 million speakers of 68 native languages in Mexico, of which 23 are at risk.
Article 2 of the Constitution establishes that this population group has the right to receive assistance from interpreters and defenders who know their language and culture.
There are 66,963 speakers of 20 indigenous languages in the state of Jalisco, of which 42% live in the metropolitan area of Guadalajara, according to the latest Population Census.
Inali has 47 interpreters registered in the entity, of which 24 are in said metropolis.
The Indigenous Communities Support Unit of the University of Guadalajara serves as a bridge between the city’s indigenous groups and public institutions in the absence of translation services, José Claudio Carrillo Navarro, head of this unit, told EFE.
“It is not a structured and systematized activity, it is a matter of eventual nature, which is generally managed and support is requested. Sometimes it is regarding making translations of academic, administrative or legal documents, but also regarding directly supporting those who demand a service,” he said.
This instance uses a dozen interpreters to accompany indigenous people to request health services at the Guadalajara Civil Hospital or legal services, although many of them are not certified to perform legal translations.
Institutional “racism”
Antonio García Mijarez, of Wixárika origin and founder of the Collective of Urban Indigenous Youth, attributes the lack of interpreters in government institutions to the insufficient budget and an indolence of public servants to provide quality care to indigenous communities.
“We face the issue of the budget because we have to pay those interpreters, but there is also a bigger problem, which is this institutionalized racism that is in the justice and health systems and that is complex,” he denounced.
She recently treated a woman from her community who came to a state hospital to treat pain that had been bothering her for a long time.
Since she did not speak Spanish and in the absence of an interpreter, the doctors minimized the severity and scheduled her for studies several months later.
When García Mijares intervened, the attention was different.
“There was a Wixárika language interpreter at that hospital, but we realized that he was no longer working. From this case they hired him once more, but it has to do with the fact that they do not believe it is relevant that there be an interpreter, they believe that with communication with signs the person will be cared for,” he concluded.
By: EFE
2024-02-21 20:18:57
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