Law in Translation

By Quyen Tu

I never know what to expect when I answer the phone or listen to my voice mail. The caller may be speaking English, Spanish, or Vietnamese.

Explaining a legal concept to a client in English can be tough enough, but explaining it in a different language adds another layer of complexity to the task. Granted, I grew up speaking Cantonese, English, and Vietnamese at home, and I learned Spanish in school. But when I joined the Public Law Center in Santa Ana last year, I didn't anticipate how much my language skills would be tested.

Many of the words used in American jurisprudence have no direct equivalent in other languages. And my clients who are immigrants usually bring to the United States their own perception of the legal system they learned and/or experienced in their country of origin. Typically, these are not fond memories.

In the beginning, I struggled to translate English legalease word for word for my Spanish- and Vietnamese-speaking clients. I communicated that "complaint" was una demanda in Spanish or do'n kiê.n in Vietnamese. I paid careful attention to my bilingual colleagues' and foreign clients' speech patterns, and quickly became acclimated to the rhythms of their speech. Over and over, I found that many legal words had to be explained to clients in whole sentences or paragraphs because there was no direct translation, or equivalent concept, in their native tongue. So, I've learned to not "stress out" when I cannot translate something word for word. My primary goal is client comprehension, not exactitude or brevity.

The other challenge I have struggled to overcome is my foreign-born clients' previous bad experiences with the law. In many countries, people arrested by the police may disappear forever. One case is typical: A frightened and bewildered 80-year-old Vietnamese woman whom I'll call Kim came to see me because a neighbor had filed a police report accusing her of vandalizing that neighbor's car. Her accuser repeatedly told her that she would go to jail. Because of what she had experienced in Vietnam, Kim feared that at any moment the police would come after her and put her in prison.

When Kim recounted her version of the incident with the neighbor's car, she repeatedly sought my assurance that she wasn't facing impending incarceration. I understood her fears immediately: I'd grown up hearing my family and their friends talk about people who were jailed by the Vietnamese police for no apparent reason. Sometimes the arrestees would be released after bribes exchanged hands; other times they were not so lucky.

All Kim could produce for me regarding the incident was the business card of the police officer who'd been called, with a report number written on it. After calling the investigating officer, I learned that no charges were ever filed against Kim. I then assured her that our legal process is different from the one she had known in Vietnam and that the police would not arbitrarily imprison her. Because she did not speak English or understand the American legal process, Kim had been unable to determine this on her own. The poor woman had lived for four long months in terror of being jailed.

Kim later told me that, after she talked to me, she was finally able to sleep through the night for the first time in a long while.

Meeting with and assisting clients such as Kim who are unable to navigate our legal system alone reinforces my belief that the cornerstone of that system must be access to justice for all people. I know that even to many native English speakers justice can seem like a very abstract concept because they don't understand the legal process. Such a feeling is magnified a thousand times for my clients, who do not speak or understand English. In these circumstances, I'm proud that my constantly expanding language skills serve as a bridge for more people to obtain fair treatment in the American justice system.

Quyen Tu is a staff attorney at the Public Law Center in Santa Ana.

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