“Thank you for calling the city of Santa Maria,” a happy, automated voice chirps over the line. “Para español, por favor presione el signo de los numeros.”
Selecting the pound sign, a loud beep sounds off, followed by a pause.
A woman’s voice relays this message in Spanish: “If you know your party’s four-digit extension code, you may dial it now.”
I punched in the code for the City Clerk’s Office—which a non-English speaker would need to dial to request an interpreter for City Council meetings. It rang and rang until a voicemail stated in English that no one in the City Clerk’s Office could come to the phone, but to leave a message and they’ll get right back to you. There was no translation into Spanish.
This is one of many hoops non-English speakers have to jump through if they want to participate in a Santa Maria City Council meeting. Prior to requesting an interpreter, non-English speakers have to navigate the city’s website, find the translated council agenda, pick the specific item they wish to hear about, and then call the city clerk to request an interpreter for that item—all at least one to two days in advance, Public Information Officer Mark Van de Kamp told the Sun.
“Back in 2003, we offered and paid for Spanish translation at our council meetings by employees. The City Council voted to discontinue that service in May 2007 upon deciding this courtesy was being abused,” Van de Kamp said.
People would request a translator the day of the meeting, staff would quickly make arrangements, and nobody showed up to use the service, he said. After that, he said, a group of volunteers provided translation with the same “dismal” results continuing into recent years.
Councilmember Carlos Escobedo asked about funding for interpreters during the June 21 budget meeting—something that was rejected by Councilmembers Etta Waterfield and Mike Cordero and Mayor Alice Patino.
City Manager Jason Stillwell presented the council with several options to invest a portion of the city’s 2022-24, $258 million budget—including, continuing with the current system, investing in Spanish captions for YouTube replays ($12,000 per year), or having live translation by employees or certified contractors ($200,000 per year).
“[Translation] is a huge challenge, even right now,” Escobedo said during the meeting. “I’ve been speaking English for a couple of years, but it’s still sometimes hard to understand and more when you’re not familiarized with the topics.”
The native Spanish-speaker reflected on his own time as a translator and how rewarding it was to bridge that information gap. He told the council that it would be a great investment in Santa Maria, which has a population that is 76 percent Latino and has a large number of Spanish-speakers.
“I hear there’s a lot of people wanting to speak their own language to participate, and [this is] how we give them the incentive to go into the door. From my perspective, let’s try for one year, and then we can decide if there’s no participation [to] go back and do other strategies,” he said.
Councilmember Waterfield responded with a laugh as she said, “I have no idea what you said. … If we hire an interpreter and nobody shows up, we still have to pay them, and I don’t want to get into that.”
She argued that the $200,000 the city could spend on an interpreter can be better used someplace else because people don’t use the current, request-based system. Escobedo argued that the city’s current system creates barriers to access.
“We do not put barriers up, people put barriers up for themselves. People that tell other people they put barriers up, that’s just a weakness and choice of words to be used to try and make someone do something they don’t want to do,” Waterfield said.
Historically, the city has been “very cognizant” of providing translators when needed, Waterfield argued, so she didn’t see any other need than enhancing the city’s YouTube page to include Spanish subtitles.
“I think we’ve been gracious and good to let them know if you want a translator, we will provide a translator,” Waterfield said.
The council voted 3-2 (with Councilmembers Gloria Soto and Escobedo dissenting) to enhance the city’s YouTube channel with subtitles, Soto told the Sun, limiting potential participation and adding more challenges for the non-English speaking communities.
“We—in the council chambers—are having conversations and [leaving] people out because of [the] language barriers that exist,” she said. “It’s an equity issue because there’s barriers in place for only a certain segment of folks in our community. In this case, its monolingual Spanish-speakers.”
Enhancing the YouTube channel with subtitles is not a big enough step to reach non-English speaking communities, Soto added.
“We want to make our chambers inviting to folks, and by saying, ‘OK, you will have access to interpretation on YouTube,’ that limits the amount of people that can engage in-person. That’s not fair. And then you also run into internet access, technology access. Not a lot of folks may necessarily have the ability to get on a computer, go online, and listen in to our meetings,” she said.
There would also be future challenges regarding Spanish-speakers wanting to leave public comment, and ensuring the council members understood what the person shared, Soto continued.
Even if the city were to provide interpreters or enhanced services—after years of not providing access—it will take time for the community to catch on to the opportunity and increase participation, Mixteco/Indígena Community Organizing Project Executive Director Arcenio Lopez said.
“It will take real engagement and outreach and education with non-English speaking individuals to participate because they might not be aware that they can listen to their leaders in their language,” Lopez said. “These representatives should be reaching out to organizations like ours that works with indigenous [and] migrant communities to inform the community about language accessibility.”
YouTube subtitles concerned Lopez because some people might not be able to read or write, and sometimes City Council conversations can be very technical, he said.
“When it comes to very formal governmental conversations, I have seen if you are not a native Spanish speaker [who] became an interpreter, it might be a real challenge translating some terms from English to Spanish. The real concept could get lost,” Lopez added.
Spanish also has several different words for what could be one word in English, he added. For example, the word “policy,” can translate to la política, la póliza, or la norma, according to Google Translate. But, when it comes to City Council discussions, the more accurate translation for government policies would be la ley, Lopez said.
“It becomes harder and harder. Let’s say there’s some important [farmworkers-oriented] item for discussion, but farmworkers work at 4 a.m. and come home late. When are they going to call the clerk? Will they even answer the phone? And if they are answering, are they answering in Spanish or English?” he asked.
Staff writer Taylor O’Connor can be reached at toconnor@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jul 21-28, 2022.