By Kate Goldman.
When this photograph of families detained at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas from 2019 appeared in the New York Times last week (on March 6, 2023), my heart sank. I was immediately taken back to 2018 and 2019, to the previous times, when I volunteered on the ground and remotely at Dilley as an interpreter and …

This asylum ban is yet another example of the government weaponizing language to limit freedom of mobility.  Under the proposed ban, asylum seekers must undergo their process via the CBP One mobile app. The app is only available in English and Spanish, in spite of the fact that dozens of languages are spoken by asylum seekers at the border. 

Our incredible team has been mobilizing to support victims of the devastating earthquake, translating resources and services into Kurdish Kurmanji, Sorani, Arabic, Armenian, and Turkish, as highlighted in this powerful piece written by Respond community member Leila Lorenzo.

“Immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers are particularly vulnerable to a range of human rights violations, including violations of the right to adequate housing. Displaced persons are also particularly vulnerable to discrimination, racism, and xenophobia, which can further interfere with their ability to secure sustainable and adequate living conditions.”

Language is an access and social justice issue. And there are so many challenges that emerge around it. I’ve already talked about the importance of humane and sensitive translation. But another is the constantly changing nature of fieldwork. To this end, I am deeply grateful for …

Respond Crisis Translation is committed to bringing vital information. According to ACOG, roughly one-quarter of women in the United States access abortion care in their lifetime. In Respond, we know that barriers to abortion exacerbate existing societal disparities, and we strongly believe in translating any …

At Respond, we are providing language support to Ukrainian refugees, and to thousands of asylum seekers, refugees, and other individuals from around the world in violent systems that refuse to provide them the support they need.

Respond works with 382 asylee, refugee, deportee, and other system and financially impacted people, to guarantee they can earn a dignified wage and support themselves and their loved ones.

“We try to find the best way to support each case with the human kindness and warmth that is often denied to language minorities,” Tatiana said when asked to talk about what she values most about her work as the Spanish Team Lead at Respond. 

At Respond, our commitment is not only to language justice but also to economic justice, so we need to make sure that we pay them dignified wages for this life-critical dialectical work. 

We are looking for translators from Ukrainian to English, German, Czech, Polish and other languages. We are looking for medical and legal translators and proofreaders in English, German, and French.

Dear Respond Community:
The solidarity we’ve experienced throughout 2022 has blown us away. Since the beginning of the year, we’ve continued to mobilize to help Haitians and Afghans, and answered the call to support Ukrainians fleeing the war, and so many others …

We are so grateful to our partners and donors because their funding allows us to compensate translators like Irma, who works relentlessly to help others.

Thank you to the wonderful interpreter from the Bengali team for working with us, and thank you to all the wonderful interpreters at Respond who are the voice of hope to detainees and people facing language barriers!

Translation has been a crucial part of human life since the dawn of history. It has always been present in different aspects of human communication. Its practice and approaches were exposed to change, adapting to the multifaceted manifestation of world development. It is a bridge to …

Dear Respond Community: Our hearts are heavy with sorrow and worry as the people of Iran rise up in protest of the Islamic Republic. We are thinking of all of our sisters and brothers and of all the oppressed. We are thinking of young women like Jina (Mahsa) Amini, our Kurdish peers, the Baha'i, Afghan refugees, and LGBTQ communities…

Danielle Josyle, shares about a project she did outside of her work with Respond. We honor all that Danielle does.

“I wanted to write a story about the earthquake that was also about ordinary people and everyday life. I wanted my characters to have complex interior lives, and have ordinary joys, concerns, relationships, and dreams, because as we all know there’s a kind of flattening and dehumanization that happens in a lot of …

Language is the biggest treasure of every person and ethnos, without the language there is no nation, the language is the DNA of the nation. Ominously true sound the words of Ukrainian poetess Lina Kostenko: “Nations do not die of …

The wonderful translators on our Haitian Creole team worked on several projects in June 2022. Here are some highlights:
The HC team provided oral interpretation services for Las Americas in partnership with VICE News for a piece where they interviewed Haitian asylum seekers. (Publication TBA). They also …