When a migrant community in Monterey County flooded in March, organizers put together a list of Indigenous interpreters to help evacuees navigate resources.
Inside an evacuation center at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds, Maria Adolfo-Morales and a disaster service volunteer listened to a woman describe her concerns in the Mixteco language.a broken levee flooded the farming town of PajaroAdolfo-Morales, a 22-year-old community healthcare worker, interpreted what the woman said into English, then rendered the volunteer’s responses into Mixteco, one of several Indigenous languages spoken in southern Mexico.
With different languages in the mix, and climate change likely to spur more extreme weather, community organizers say more needs to be done. De La Garza said her organization and others, including the food bank, created a rotation of staff, contractors and volunteers who speak Mixteco, Triqui and Zapoteco, as well as Spanish, on four- to five-hour shifts at the fairgrounds shelter, which housed more than 300 evacuees.
Luis Alejo, chair of the Monterey County Board of Supervisors, said the county plans to make Indigenous interpreters an integral part of the services it provides to residents, eventually including courtrooms and the police and fire departments.
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