Respond Crisis Translation--Our Values
Equal access: We fight for the right to equality of access to all spaces and services for people of any and all nationalities, origins, and native languages. We work alongside asylum seekers and refugees navigating complicated and hostile legal, medical, psychological and other human services systems in languages they don’t speak, to make sure that language is not a barrier to gaining access to the support they need. We also collaborate with partner organizations offering services so that these can maximize their assistance to asylum seekers, refugees, and other immigrant communities.
Freedom of mobility: We stand in solidarity with all people on the frontlines of the fight to abolish borders, ICE, the police, and other tools employed to sustain and expand the carceral imperialist state. We insist that the right to mobility and the right to asylum should not be impeded by language barriers. All people deserve access to excellent interpreters and translators as they move through dangerous and challenging journeys, and navigate the complicated process of applying for asylum and (re)building their lives. We refuse to remain silent when language is used as a tool to limit freedom of mobility, and we advocate for systemic reform in the U.S. immigration system to protect the rights of immigrants coming to the U.S. in search of safer and more stable lives.
Language democracy: Too many asylum seekers, refugees, deportees, and other migrants experience financial, physical and emotional harm as a result of institutionalized language violence. We are committed to working with all directly impacted by language exclusion and violence to create platforms for insisting on justice and reparations for people in the aftermath of language violence. We partner with activists and organizations to ensure that research, resources and training are linguistically accessible across electoral politics, legal advocacy, education, social services, housing and tenant rights, LGBTQ+ rights, climate change, and more. Through collaborative policy proposals, voter mobilization, and advocating for a culture that values and funds translation, we are working together to build the language democracy we envision.
Economic Justice: Translation and interpretation work is essential labor. For asylum seekers, refugees, deportees, immigrants, Indigenous-language speakers, and others belonging to historically marginalized communities, work in translation, interpretation, language justice and language democracy can become a pathway to economic empowerment and stability. Funding their work allows us to ensure just wages for folks who are systematically under-paid or unemployed while ensuring all asylum seekers, refugees and migrant communities receive access to high-quality, compassionate language support. We therefore prioritize paid and professional development opportunities for language speakers from these communities. By doing this, we protect and compensate the communication rights to those most affected by xenophobic migration policies, while also providing income sources to those most impacted by COVID19-related income loss and other systemic forms of financial and economic violence.
Collaboration: Respond is the only rapid response language access collective in the U.S., filling a critical gap in the system and working to dismantle the root causes of language violence. Our approach is to plug in as “language allies” in ways that are as helpful and empowering as possible to organizations that are leading on the frontlines. We tailor our work so each of our 100+ partner organizations can overcome language barriers to meet their clients’ specific needs; this ranges from co-creating professionalization training to partnering on collaborative development strategies. We believe in building each other up and that strength and movement building comes from working together.
Community Care: Last, but definitely not least, Respond Crisis Translation is a global network of activists dedicated to providing high-quality and compassionate translation and interpretation services to asylum seekers, refugees, deportes, migrants and anyone experiencing language barriers. While this work is extremely important and rewarding, it is also very challenging to all who are involved. That is why we are working to offer trauma-informed training to all our translators and interpreters, so that they understand and know how to manage traumatic content and declarations, both in compassion towards clients and to themselves. Respond Crisis Translation’s network is also supported by a dedicated therapist who can work with our volunteers and support them as they work with difficult content, and experience vicarious trauma and other difficult effects resulting from this work.