An Immigrant's Perspective

Date: January 28, 2008

LISTEN (opens  mp3 file in new window.)

Description: The segment is a profile on an undocumented worker who immigrated from  the Yucatan. She talks about the challenges she had surviving in Mexico (even though her family owned land) as well as the challenges to   finding work in the U.S.

Jill Shenker at La Raza Centro Legal helped me fine tune the pitch and contacted "Catalina" all while Jill was on her holiday vacation. She also spent over an hour translating the recorded interview with "Catalina." ¡Muchas gracias Jill!

During my script edit, I learned that a study shows that listeners feel that a reporter is biased when they pronounce foreign words as a native speaker would. So while I've been working hard to get rid of a gringa accent, I was asked to re-gringa-fy myself for this read. Thankfully, I didn't have to say "Tijuana" drunken fratboy style ("Ti-ah-wanna," ) and I could pronounce La Raza Centro Legal with the emphasis on the 'gal and not the le'. Still, I found the study interesting. I wonder if that's why the mispronunciation of Cesar Chavez proliferates.

Broadcast History:
Justice Talking

Comments

[Noah]

"re-Gringa-fying" oneself? Funny idea that kind of makes sense. Do you think that has to do with an idea of insincerity on behalf of those who fain an accent well? Your editing of the translation is interesting. It's kind of a creative non-fiction approach. Nice work, Robynn.

[nonogirl]

The mixing of the translation proved to be a challenge. I caught a mistake when the piece was first posted, but we fixed it early before stations downloaded it.

It was the choice of the editor and engineer to just fade out "Catalina's" voice. I think I would have brought her voice back up at the end, but with the engineer not speaking Spanish it was already a hard mix.

As for not using a Spanish accent, it seemed to have more to do with seeming to side with the Spanish speaker if you use their pronunciation. I find this controversial and I'm glad that the editor mostly let me say the words the way I wanted to in the end.

Thanks for listening.