Now it’s almost routine: whenever senior administrators send an email to the school community to mark a milestone or comment on recent events, the text in English is followed by a Spanish translation.
Only a decade ago, the school translated just the most important documents into Spanish, according to Upper School Director John Schafer. Now, Director and Assistant Director of Family Support Miriam Magaña and Fatima Taungahihifo, respectively, facilitate the translation of all emails to parents into Spanish and organize live interpretation for parents at school events and meetings.
To students of Spanish-speaking parents, like sophomore Avishair Barajas Morales, Menlo’s translation and interpretation programs are a valuable boon (translation deals with written works, while interpretation deals with spoken language). “I can do [translating for my parents], but I don’t have the vocabulary of my parents who have been speaking Spanish for years, compared to a translator who is really advanced in both languages,” he said.
While a wide variety of languages are spoken in Menlo homes, all students and many parents who converse in another language at home also have strong English skills. That said, when Magaña surveys new Menlo families each year to determine their language needs, around 25-30 families ask for translated materials in Spanish, and two have so far asked for Mandarin translation. “We really landed on Spanish being primarily the one language that we were going to be focusing on,” she said.
For events with parents, Magaña assembles a team of interpreters to provide live services to Spanish-speaking families. When Magaña arrived at Menlo in 2021, finding interpreters for such events and assisting with day-to-day document and communication translations meant partnering with a translation agency called Alboum. “That partnership and working with Alboum—the level of services that Menlo was able to provide […] took off,” Magaña explained. “It’s expensive, but it’s easy because they have so many people all over the world who provide the services for us on Zoom.”
However, in-person events require additional accommodations. Parents listen to speakers through in-person interpreters who use special audio equipment to speak to multiple people at once — like a museum audio tour, only live. Events longer than an hour, though, need two interpreters to allow them to take alternating breaks. And before back-to-school night each year, the Family Support team has to find a dozen or more interpreters to be able to pair up with parents.
Because most Menlo events are designed for a mostly English-speaking audience, interpreters must perform simultaneous interpretation, which, unlike consecutive interpretation, doesn’t allow interpreters much time to translate—the speaker keeps talking. “Simultaneous interpretation is a lot harder,” Magaña said.
Family Support also works to accommodate non-English-speaking families in other ways, especially for the many MSPA social gatherings where interpretation can’t be provided. “We’ve done things like encouraging that most events happen on campus because that just sets a comfortable, normal, […] neutral ground,” Magaña said.
Though in-person interpretations are currently only offered in Spanish, Magaña noted that this can change. Indeed, many Zoom events already provide Mandarin interpreters, and the communications department had Menlo’s recently revised Mission & Values statement translated into French, in addition to Spanish and Mandarin. “Through Alboum, we have access to a ton of languages,” she said. “It’s just a matter of families asking and telling us what they need.”
Menlo also enlists Alboum to help translate documents, though for some short-notice written communications, Magaña and Taungahihifo still do the translations themselves. Barajas Morales explained that Menlo providing documents in Spanish saves him and his mother a lot of time. “[My mom] can just read [the document] and ask questions to either Ms. Borbón or Ms. Magaña,” he said.
Barajas Morales added that the accessibility of Magaña and Director of Student Belonging Carmen Borbón deserve special credit for their efforts at making all families feel included. “[Parents] know they will be met with compassion and care,” he said.
Magaña hopes to get more departments acquainted with Alboum so faculty can request translations without going through Family Support, having already accomplished this with the admissions team. “I want to institutionalize translation and interpretation services as part of making our programming […] more accessible to everyone,” she said.
Additionally, while Family Support currently notifies teachers of students whose parents need translation services at the beginning of each school year, Magaña said she wants to make this a quarterly occurrence. “Classes change and we miss some of this in the transitions,” she said.
Still, Barajas Morales believes other schools should strive to emulate Menlo’s efforts. “Menlo is the only school that had this program when I shadowed, and I think that made us feel very welcome,” he said.
