Joan Fernandez

Translator Portuguese Team

Joan loves the collegiality and shared mission among all Respond volunteers who use their language skills to create a fairer world, and fully tell stories that are so often and tragically miscommunicated.

Joan Fernandez  is a graduate of Princeton University, where he majored in History and received a certificate in Latin American Studies. Between 2015 and 2021, he worked at Central American Refugee Center (CARECEN) in Hempstead, NY as an Immigrant Justice Corps (IJC) Community Fellow and at Central American Legal Assistance (CALA) in Brooklyn, NY as a Department of Justice Fully Accredited Representative. He is currently a law student at Temple University Beasley School of Law in Philadelphia, PA, where he is a Rubin-Presser Social Justice Fellow and a Law and Public Policy Scholar. Joan has been an active Portuguese language volunteer with Respond: Crisis Translation since early 2020, as well as a native Spanish speaker. He looks forward to continuing to create lasting change through his work with Respond and in his professional career.

Joan shares a little known fact about Portuguese, “Portuguese is one of the most spoken languages in the world! And only a small percentage of all speakers live in Portugal. The Lusophone (or Portuguese-speaking) world traverses South America, Africa, Europe, and Asia with Portuguese-speaking diaspora throughout the world.”

 As an immigrant advocate for several years before becoming a law student, Joan often interpreted evidence in support of asylum cases, between asylum officers and asylum seekers at asylum interviews, client-attorney meetings, psychological evaluations, among other contexts. Shortly after the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) program was created, he volunteered with Al Otro Lado (AOL), a direct legal services nonprofit organization, in Tijuana, Mexico and it quickly became apparent how little language support there was for asylum seekers forced to prepare their cases from there. Joan left Tijuana seeking opportunities to use his language skills to help resolve that void in language access along the southern border. He initially formed part of a group of Portuguese speaking volunteers, before volunteering with Respond beginning at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a time where the need for these services became even greater and harder to coordinate.

It is no surprise to Joan that this kind of work can be emotionally and mentally taxing, and one must  prioritize self-care. Joan goes offline after a certain hour of the evening, and checks in with his support system if he’s ever feeling overwhelmed. “It serves no one (and may, in fact, be prejudicial) if I am not hyper focused on doing the best I can in my technical role, so I often remember that some distancing from these lived experiences is critical to my success as a translator and interpreter. As with most things mental health-related, the impact of this work is not always predictable so I cannot plan around it. And that understanding is both basic yet difficult to fully accept and appreciate.” Joan shares.

Joan loves the collegiality and shared mission among all Respond volunteers who use their language skills to create a fairer world, and fully tell stories that are so often and tragically miscommunicated.

Joan says, “In many ways, my involvement in language access work has had a similar impact on my personal and professional life as direct legal services has. It requires me to listen to others in detail, and ask many questions (and often the same ones) in several ways to reach as true an understanding I can of an individual’s lived experiences. As an aspiring attorney, I find that is an invaluable trait that will prepare me to represent my clients’ stories and interests as best I can.”

We are so grateful that even though this year has been personally challenging for Joan, he's made time to regularly contribute to Respond’s work. He usually responds to calls for volunteers as soon as he sees them to make sure there is no lag time for Respond to resolve the requests it receives.  

When asked how he would define language justice, Joan says, “Language justice is a labor of love and sacrifice that ensures we meet each other where we are. It is also a response to the often-fraught language access issues residing within governmental institutions that administer justice. True justice cannot exist unless we are all fundamentally understood.” 

A little-known fact about Joan is that he loves long walks and runs! While he has not competed professionally (and he has neither the desire nor stamina to do so), Jean enjoys seeing how these activities challenge the limits his mind places on his body.

 Joan’s favorite word in any language is, “The Spanish language word “Pa’lante!” (“Onward!) is the clear winner. It is a combination of two words “para adelante” and is my unofficial motto because it both energizes and heals me. It makes possible an open-ended future that does not necessarily form based on whatever you may be experiencing. By displacing itself from your circumstances now, it inspires hope about the direction of that future.”