The ATA Chronicle - March/April 2022 - 26

Interpreting in
Rural Communities
Based on our
experience training
community interpreters
in a small town, here
are a few ways to
meet the increasing
need for language
services while
ensuring linguistic
rights in underserved
rural areas.
By Thomas Genova and
Tammy Berberi
I
mmigration to the rural
U.S. has grown in some
areas by as much as
130% in the last generation.1
Despite this growth,
language-access services
remain concentrated in
urban centers. Based on
our experience training
community interpreters in
a small town, this article
will consider ways to meet
increasing needs and
ensure linguistic rights in
underserved rural areas.
We both work as associate
professors at the University
of Minnesota Morris, a
small liberal arts college
located in a rural Midwestern
community. Thomas teaches
Spanish and Tammy teaches
French. Thanks to expansion
in manufacturing and
agriculture, immigration in
our small town (population
5,100) has for years followed
national demographic trends:
26 The ATA Chronicle | March/April 2022
nearly a fifth of the local
public-school population now
identifies as Hispanic/Latino.
Unfortunately, interpreting
resources in our community
are scarce. The closest
company dedicated
exclusively to providing
these services is located
nearly 100 miles away in
a larger urban center. The
distance that interpreters
must travel to reach our
community increases the
cost of these services,
sometimes prohibitively.
Lacking local
professionals, small towns
like ours often turn to remote
interpreting, yet broadband
access in rural areas remains
relatively limited: 30% of
people living in the rural U.S.
don't have a home broadband
connection. Meanwhile,
smartphone, tablet, laptop,
and desktop ownership in
rural communities trails
rates in urban and suburban
areas by about 10%.2
In an effort to remedy this
situation, in 2015, we worked
with our university's Center
for Small Towns to create a
local community interpreter/
translator training workshop.
The series is offered every
year in advance of parentteacher
conferences in
the local school system.
Although the need for
interpreting consistently
outpaces the number of
participants in the workshop
series, hosting it annually
serves to strengthen and
maintain key relationships.
It also sustains awareness
of a constellation of issues
around language access,
civil rights, and linguistic
and cultural diversity, as
well as aspects that support
and hinder efforts to build a
more inclusive and culturally
dynamic community.
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The ATA Chronicle - March/April 2022

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