OMAHA, Neb.—The walk from Adriana Hinojosa’s tiny office to Courtroom 28 is short, but she still keeps a brisk pace.
“Hola. Buenos Dias,” she repeats as she passes the familiar faces of public defenders, prosecutors and others who line the hallways and spill into the rotunda of the Douglas County Courthouse.
As one of just 21 certified foreign language court interpreters in the state and with a workload that has more than doubled in the last decade, Hinojosa can’t afford to linger.
Nebraska judicial leaders say much the same as they grapple with a quickly diversifying population and their constitutional responsibility to provide all people—regardless the language they speak—equal access and due process in the state’s courts.
All states are dealing with the shortage of court interpreters, say those working to address the problems. But the challenges may have crept up more quickly in states like Nebraska, whose populations, until recently, have not been diverse—the same areas that as well don’t yet have ample pools from which to select qualified interpreters.
“It just sort of cropped up and took them by surprise,” said Wanda Romberger, manager of court interpreting services at the Virginia-based National Center for State Courts.
The work of a multistate partnership founded in 1995 to deal with interpreter certification issues can attest to the growing demand. The effort began in 1995 with four states and the focus was on Spanish. Today, 40 states are involved and the consortium manages tests in 16 languages and is feeling pressure to diversify even more.
There are an estimated 2,500 credentialed court interpreters nationwide and only about 500 who work in languages other than Spanish, said Isabel Framer, chairwoman of the National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators.
The continued use of non-certified interpreters is problematic, she said. Even a highly educated bilingual interpreter may not have the necessary skills to work in a court setting.
More than 60 percent of court interpreting in Nebraska was handled by non-certified interpreters in 2007, according to the Nebraska Supreme Court.
The numbers of people in the state speaking a language other than English at home, meanwhile, has increased to an estimated 9 percent, according to a 2006 estimate—the most recent data available.
Judicial officials won’t deny the difficulty in the certification exam. There’s no average number of tests it takes to pass, but prospective interpreters rarely pass in one try, said Sheryl Connolly, who coordinates interpreters and the twice-a-year rounds of testing for the state.
It took Lincoln-based certified interpreter Raul Escobar four tries.
But Escobar seemed at ease with the simultaneous translation on a recent day in a Lancaster County courtroom as he walked client Jaime Escobar through his arraignment on a traffic offense and then stepped into the hallway to give the Guatemala native additional guidance.
Being stopped by an officer who didn’t know much Spanish and standing in a courtroom not understanding the language everyone else was speaking is difficult, said 22-year-old Jaime Escobar.
“It’s the most humiliating experience you could go through,” he said through his translator.
Despite the challenges, Nebraska has made strides, said Nebraska Supreme Court Justice John Gerrard, who has spearheaded the courts’ efforts to promote racial and ethnic fairness.
He believes Nebraska got a leg up by taking a close look at the issue beginning in 1999 when legislation was passed making the Nebraska Supreme Court, rather than counties, responsible for paying and establishing standards for interpreters.
An advisory committee—which he chairs today—made up of judges, interpreters and other judicial officials also took on certification, training and recruitment challenges.
Gerrard sees signs of progress, including a pilot project in Schuyler to use video conferencing to link up with certified interpreters. If successful, the program could provide the state some savings, he said.
Interpretation services are costing Nebraska about $1 million annually, having increased 10 percent each year over the last several years, Gerrard said.
The court pays out $50 an hour to certified interpreters and $35 an hour to interpreters who aren’t certified. The rates have been in place since July 2007.
But costly or not, the state can’t shirk this responsibility, said Gerrard, who sees interpretation as providing access to justice.
“If the playing field is level, then the facts and the law will take care of itself,” he said.
On the Net:
Nebraska Supreme Court,
National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators,
National Center for State Courts,
