Who gets to translate Amanda Gorman?
I agree with Achy Obejas that there are "no easy answers" to the question of identity and translation, and that identity impacts the work. If this controversy means black translators get more jobs and opportunities, that’s a good thing, but it doesn’t solve inequality, and any sphere where only a few people get to do the job is fundamentally unfair. It means five people in the world got a cool opportunity. That matters, but it isn’t changing society. Like Patel and Youssef say in their article: “Promoting diversity”, “celebrating multilingualism”, “nurturing minority talent”, and “championing international voices” are all things that can be done without acknowledging or challenging underlying structures.
All the Violence It May Carry on its Back –
Gitanjali Patel and Nariman Youssef
“The experience of grappling with, translating from, your heritage language can be intense and emotional, you have a different relationship to the language…”
One of the anecdotes from translators of color that stood out to me was about grappling with your heritage language and how it can be “intense and emotional, you have a different relationship to the language…” I’ve talked to friends about this who grew up translating for their parents. Translation can be so emotionally loaded when it’s connected to your relationship to your family (including the unhappiness therein) and it’s also a moment where you might be made fun of or dismissed or simply not understood, which especially makes you feel vulnerable when you’re young. Then as an adult, I imagine of course it brings back a lot of memories and emotions.
“But you still feel insecure that you learnt the language in the home, you didn't learn it in a thorough and formal way…”
“Formal” education is so overvalued, where everything has to be through an institution and have some official stamp on it! Yet we all know intuitively the best way to learn anything is to do it. Professionalization is the death of art.
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