The ATA Chronicle - March/April 2022 - 29

easily recruited university
students of Spanish to the
program and to serve as
community interpreters for
parent-teacher conference
day. Within the school
building, we and the
recruited students assumed
the roles that were familiar
to us, which created a kind
of university bubble-a
cultural in-group. Positive
changes came when the
school's cultural liaison took
over the task of recruiting
participants through her
connections to the Hispanic/
Latino community. Having
people from the local
community participate
in the program and their
visibility on parent-teacher
conference day shifted the
power from " Gown " back
to " Town, " undermining
unintended hierarchies,
foregrounding organic
community relationships,
and inspiring greater
confidence and belonging
among Hispanic/Latino users
of community interpreters
than we had seen in the past.
Collateral Growth
Although the workshops
have yielded comparatively
few interpreters who stay
in the area and engage
regularly at the school,
the continued advocacy
that the series represents
has supported positive
change in our community.
A cultural liaison was hired
in 2017, and she currently
works part-time in the
school and part-time as
the executive director
for a local nonprofit
serving immigrants in
our community. The
serendipitous connection
between the local school
and the community inherent
www.ata-chronicle.online
in her dual role has evolved
the workshops toward a
more organic, grassroots
approach to training. The
school administration
now recognizes the skillbuilding
required of
teachers as part of their
professional development
(i.e., with continuing
education credits) and
compensates them for their
voluntary participation in
our workshops. Recently,
funds have also been made
available to remunerate
interpreters as well.
Future Plans
The pandemic has prompted
us to reformulate the
workshops for remote
delivery, yielding still more
insights about the value of
what we're doing locally. A
few workshop alums have
been able to join us for a
refresher session and then
as interpreters for parentteacher
conferences, thus
alleviating scheduling
pressures. Remote meetings
have entailed the
technological barriers
already discussed (e.g., low
bandwith) and undermined
what we now realize are
strengths inherent in our
grassroots and communityoriented
approach to
ensuring language access in
our schools. Other small
communities in our region
report similar challenges. In
response, we've begun to
imagine a hybrid workshop
series, although not without
some ambivalence about its
promise. We also have plans
to partner with neighboring
communities to undertake
community needs and
assets assessments and to
support the development of
similarly place-based
grassroots programs.
This article was made possible with the generous support of the
Bremer Foundation as well as the University of Minnesota, including
the University of Minnesota Morris Center for Small Towns and the
Division of the Humanities. We would like to acknowledge Argie
Manolis, Dr. Cristina Ortiz, Windy González Roberts, Chris Staebler,
Citlali Ibáñez, and Autumn Macias for their collaboration on the
workshop series. We also thank our workshop participants and other
partners at Morris Area Schools.
NOTES
1
Frey, William H. " The Nation Is Diversifying Even
Faster than Predicted, According to New Census
Data. " (Brookings Institute, July 1, 2020),
https://z.umn.edu/demographic_diversity.
2
Vogels, Emily A. " Some Digital Divides Persist between Rural,
Urban, and Suburban America. " (Pew Research Center,
August 19, 2021), https://z.umn.edu/digital-divides.
3
Grant, David L. " People Like Us. " In A Good Time for
the Truth: Race in Minnesota. Edited by Sun Yung Shin
(Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2016), 199,
https://bit.ly/Minnesota-Grant.
4
Okraski, Cornelia V. and Stephanie M. Madison.
" Pueblo Pequeño, Infierno Grande: Shifting the Burden of
Latinx Spanish Teacher Retention in the Rural South, "
Foreign Language Annals (Fall 2020), 594-612,
https://z.umn.edu/Okraski_and_Madison.
5
Morris Intercultural Education Initiative: Initial Assessment,
https://z.umn.edu/MIEI_report.
Tammy Berberi is an associate professor of
French at the University of Minnesota Morris,
where she teaches modern French literature,
translation, and disability studies. Together
with Thomas Genova, she developed and has
delivered the Translation and Interpretation Program, an annual
community interpreting and translation workshop that's also
an academic course. In 2019, she received the University of
Minnesota President's Award for Outstanding Service for her
work in developing community engagement projects concerning
world languages and cultures. berberit@morris.umn.edu
Thomas Genova is an associate professor
of Spanish at the University of Minnesota
Morris, where his teaching and research include
interpreting and translation theory and practice,
as well as Latinx studies. As part of the Morris
Intercultural Education Initiative, he collaborates in providing
community translation and interpreting services in rural Stevens
County, Minnesota. Together with Tammy Berberi, he developed
and has delivered the Translation and Interpretation Program,
an annual community interpreting and translation workshop
that's also an academic course. He won a 2018-2019 Campus
Compact Presidents' Civic Engagement Stewards Award for his
work on this program. tgenova@morris.umn.edu
American Translators Association 29
https://z.umn.edu/demographic_diversity https://z.umn.edu/digital-divides https://www.bit.ly/Minnesota-Grant https://z.umn.edu/Okraski_and_Madison https://z.umn.edu/MIEI_report http://www.ata-chronicle.online
The ATA Chronicle - March/April 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The ATA Chronicle - March/April 2022
