How does abortion translate? Ballot measures are a challenge for interpreters
Reproductive rights measures are on the ballots in 10 states afterward heated debates about how to describe its impact abortion – and that’s only in English.
In 388 places in the US where English is not the primary language among voter communities, the federal government has Voting Rights Act requires all election information to be made available in the native language of each community.
Such translations are intended to help non-native speakers of English understand what they are voting for. But vague or technical terms can be a challenge, especially when it comes to indigenous languages that have limited written dictionaries.
For example, there is not a single word for abortion in the native language of the Ute Mountain Ute tribe in Montezuma County, Colorado. The New York referendum doesn’t even do that use the word “abortion,” making it all the more difficult to convey intent, proponents complain. And how exactly to do that the science of “viability” in the Florida and Nevada measures are explained in the oral traditions of the Seminole and Shoshone tribes?
The Navajo and Hopi tribes get more material translated than most, and they have more than Enough voters to influence the outcome. Under a federal court settlement with Arizona’s secretary of state, county election officials are gathering community representatives to reach consensus on written translations. Navajo, Hopi and Spanish interpreters then conduct outreach and make voice recordings for the touch pads also used by blind voters.
In most other places, other official English-language materials, including explanations of the impact of the measures, are not receiving the same attention, said Allison Neswood, an attorney with the Native American Rights Foundation, which monitors compliance.
“Native speakers should have access to all the information that English speakers have, including the language explaining ballot initiatives,” Neswood said.
Other tribes have decided against written translations and instead place tribal translators at polling stations. The law allows this, despite questions about voting secrecy and possible biases that even interpreters say could be problematic.
For example, Colorado Amendment 79 seems relatively simple: a “yes” vote would enshrine “the right to abortion” in the state constitution.
But the Ute written dictionary contains fewer than 10,000 words, so Ute language teacher Helen Munoz will personally translate on election day.
One phrase describing abortion in Ute means “your baby, you kill it,” Munoz explained. Another points to terminating a pregnancy before the embryo develops, as in, “Your baby, before it grows, it’s done.”
“I would explain to them that that’s what abortion is: it kills the abortion before the abortion matures,” she said. “I would ask them, ‘What do you think? You are the one who goes to the polls to vote for the person you want. What do you think? ”
Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act requires translations in a county or city where the U.S. Census Bureau has determined that more than 10,000 people are “limited English-speaking” voting citizens who speak the same language, or that these citizens are at least five percent of the population and their illiteracy is higher than the national illiteracy rate.
Most such places require translation into Spanish. Among the states that passed reproductive rights measures this election, several Arizona counties are required to provide translations into the languages of the Navajo, Hopi, Apache, Paiute and Pueblo tribes. Other federally required languages include Shoshone and Filipino in Nevada counties; Florida Seminoles; Ute in Colorado; and Chinese, Korean and Bangladeshi in New York.
Spanish shouldn’t be too difficult because, like English, it is a Latin-derived language, but even these can fail if election administrators rely on computer translations. Attorney Cesar Ruiz says his group, LatinoJustice PRLDEF, is pushing for human translators instead. “It’s a constant work in progress,” he said.
In Florida, Glades County Elections Supervisor Aletris Farnam said Seminole leaders told her not to worry about written translations — a decision she wants documented so she’s covered if questions about compliance arise.
“I met with the tribe and they told me their language doesn’t convert like that – they don’t have enough words in their language to write the voice language,” Farnam said. “So what I do is I hire a Creek translator to work at the polling place where all the Creek votes.”
Munoz knows it’s important to keep her opinions to herself when people vote. She is a 76-year-old Ute Mountain Ute elder who said she has done this pageant work for 17 years. Still, cultural sensitivities play a role, and she said Utes are generally anti-abortion.
“Our tribe here really doesn’t believe in that kind of thing,” she explained. “The young children – even if something bad happens, they are raped – it is up to the mother whether she wants to keep it or give it up, but we are conservative when it comes to abortion.”
New York’s Prop 1 would protect against unequal treatment based on “sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive health care and autonomy.” Supporters say this includes abortion. A judge rejected their request to have the official English description say this explicitly. Official translations use the word anyway.
The official Korean version uses characters that roughly translate as “drop the fetus,” said Lucky Ho, civic engagement coordinator at the Asian American Federation. The group’s own materials instead use symbols meaning “cessation of pregnancy.”
“It’s a more respectful way to talk about the body of the woman undergoing the experience,” Ho explained.
New York City goes beyond the federal mandate by also requiring translations into Arabic, French, Haitian Creole, Italian, Polish, Russian, Urdu and Yiddish. Literal word-for-word translations don’t make sense in some of these languages, said Asher Ross, a senior strategist at the New York Immigrant Coalition, who tried it in Creole.
“The term ‘pregnancy outcomes’ doesn’t really translate, we were told,” Ross said. “I don’t know what the final translation looked like, but they did their best.”
While some election departments struggle to meet language requirements, Coconino County, Arizona, covers much more ground. It hires tribal interpreters and sends a mobile unit to remote Navajo and Hopi gathering places, first to register voters and explain what is being voted on, and later to accept their ballots.
“If they need language assistance, they can get it there,” said District Recorder Patty Hansen. “You can’t email the interpreter, you know.”