Empowering The Independent Interpreter

[00:00:03] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to Localization Today where we explore how language, technology and communities converge to unlock ideas for everyone everywhere. I'm Eddie Arrieta, CEO at Multilingual Media. Today's conversation focuses on a challenge at the heart of language. How do we build a system that works not only for large organizations, but also for the thousands of independent interpreters, small language service providers, healthcare institutions, government agencies and communities that depend on multilingual communication every day? Our guest argues that language access is not simply a service or a technology problem. It's an ecosystem challenge. Joining us is Marisa Giglio, founder and CEO of LanguageLink Corporation and the visionary behind Interpreting Works Ecosystem. Her work explores how technology can create new opportunities for collaboration, expand access to enterprise level tools, and strengthen the role of human expertise in a rapidly changing industry. Today we'll discuss what a language access ecosystem looks like, where AI fits into that vision, and how the industry can create a more inclusive and sustainable future. Marissa, welcome to the show. [00:01:30] Speaker B: Thank you, Eddie. Thank you. I'm so glad to be here. Thank you. [00:01:33] Speaker A: And I'm super happy to have you here. We met at ALC for the first time. Then we met again at the Vamos Juntos event in Buenos Aires. What has happened ever since? How are things going with Language Link and with you? [00:01:47] Speaker B: Well, it is going well and bad, you know, the industry in United States. We are located in Connecticut, United States and it's been tough with the new regulations and of course the competition with the big companies and the small companies like mine are struggling to survive, you know, but we are going in increase of more customers, small customers and better quality of services too. [00:02:16] Speaker A: That is wonderful to hear. And of course we're going to get into the conversation of language access and the ecosystem challenges that surrounded. But before we get there, Marisa, why don't you give us a history lesson and a recap of how did Marisa Gilio get to the conversation on interpretation and language access? How did you get to where you are today? [00:02:41] Speaker B: Honestly, being an immigrant, you start working? I'm an engineer in agronomy. Nothing to do with linguistic, but thanks to my agronomy background, that's how I finished being an interpreter. Because I was requested to do a translation about bedbugs and when I did that, that was published nationwide and from that I started getting calls from different interpreter agencies and well, that's being a professional, you know, it has to be more. And I started looking for trainings, you know, for myself and I started getting trained and I started working and then I finished my first Full time job was at Yale, New Haven Healthcare System and as a staff interpreter, and that's being a professor in my other life in my country too. I developed trainings and I started training interpreters for the hospital, working at the hospital, doing the quality assurance for the hospital, for the agencies that the hospitals were hiring. And I was training that interpreters too, and also going to the refugee agencies and getting interpreters there, trained bilingual people to be interpreters to support the needs of the hospital, of the community that the hospital was serving. And little by little, I created a pool of interpreters that they requested me to start competing into contracts and start with a company that was not really my idea, it was a whole idea from the whole community. [00:04:17] Speaker A: And of course, through all that experience is where you've shaped your conceptual understanding of language access and interpreting and the whole idea behind the ecosystem. Because most people think about language as access as directly related to interpreters only. You've argued that language access, as we've said, is an ecosystem. What does a true language access ecosystem look like and why does the industry need one from your perspective? [00:04:45] Speaker B: Well, first of all, the right of communication belongs to everybody, not only to the person who doesn't speak English. The right of communication to understand what is being said belongs to everybody who is involved in a conversation. And that's why that's one part of the ecosystem. That's why I always, and as Eddie knows, I always proclaim that we need really to involve everybody who is involved on these community services, to invite them at the table to have a conversation about language access. And that is why as an interpreter and from the perspective from the language services provider, as an agency and as an interpreter, I decided at one point to start investing money in a platform that will create that inclusion. That means is the glue, our platform is the glue in the middle of that ecosystem. Okay, it's the connector. Okay. [00:05:45] Speaker A: And what would you consider the connector? And of course I can infer the answer. But why you consider that this connection, this connector is important? What does it do to the participants of that ecosystem? [00:05:57] Speaker B: Everybody counts, you know, everybody. It's important in that ecosystem. It's not because if you are an interpreter, you don't count on the services. First of all, there will not be language access services if you don't have interpreters. And that's one of the problems sometimes, because some people forget about that thanks to the interpreters. They have a company, for example, that's one thing, you know. But at the same time, the parties involved, like the stakeholders, like in the case of healthcare, the doctor, the nurse, the social worker, the patient, all of them are part of that fluency of communication. Communication is not one person. It's not communication. You need to have that interaction. And that is why it's important for me and for my team to create. When we didn't have the platform, we were doing that anyway, you know, we were creating an ecosystem without the platform. The platform is a tool that we created to support that. But the important thing is the community. You are a community and you had to reflect that and reinforce that with technology to make it more efficient. [00:07:11] Speaker A: Thank you, Marisa. And of course, you've mentioned your immigration reality. And of course, from the first time you became an immigrant, can you tell us a little bit about what has changed since then and what have stayed true over time on that reality? [00:07:31] Speaker B: When you immigrate, you create like a second life. More. In my case, I immigrate. Being 36 years old, I already have a career in my country and a whole life there. And for political reasons, we had to immigrate. And you create the new history. And from that moment when you are an immigrant, of course you doesn't matter which one was your other life or your social position or everything doesn't matter if you come with money, you are not being seen as equal. More, when you have accent like I do, I always present myself as an LEP because the truth is, the language of my heart is Spanish because I'm from Argentina. That makes people, the people who surround you, to think because you have accents or you don't choose the correct word at the correct moment, that you are dumb, you are stupid, and they don't understand that one thing doesn't have nothing to do with the other one. Through the years, of course, I got better with my language. I took classes for intonation, believe it or not, was worse my accent. But the thing is, I have four kids and I had to support them. And I start working and growing and growing and growing. And I always was community oriented. Also in my country. That means it's not like I changed my way of being from Argentina to United States. It was like a continuance of my projects. In one way, they were in different areas because in Argentina I was in a different area, but it was always community oriented. And that's what I like of my job. Really. That's the best part for me. [00:09:17] Speaker A: Thank you for sharing that. Of course, as you are an immigrant, you're also an entrepreneur. As you are an entrepreneur, there are of course smaller language service providers out There that deliver exceptional work. There are independent interpreters out there that deliver exceptional work, yet they really struggle to compete with large organizations. From your experience, why does this gap exist? [00:09:45] Speaker B: Well, it's an economical gap because our industry normally the prices, the rates that you can offer to your potential customers are based on the price, on how much you can charge them. And if you don't have enough volume, you are not able to compete with big companies that have big volume. And also they have, many times they're outsourcing outside United States and. And they have these massive calling centers or they have the resources to produce that. As a small business, you don't have that. You work. What do you have? The beauty, I think in the small business is two things, is there is no red tape to make decisions. And the other thing is, you know, your customers. Your customers know. Knows you. You know, the same thing with independent interpreters. There is many independent interpreters that work direct with customers and that customers trust them without crossing the boundary for code of ethics or standards of practice. You know, but it's. You create that relationship that I think with the big companies, that's. That disappear, you know, because the CEO from big companies is very strange that no, their clients, except they are huge clients equivalent to the size that they have. But as a small business, you got that human connection, you know, that I think you lose it when you are a big company. [00:11:25] Speaker A: And of course, I think you're pointing to the fact that this might generate a lot of fragmentation, this might generate isolation in many ways. What happens when the industry becomes too fragmented? Who pays the price? The provider, the clients, communities that are being served? [00:11:43] Speaker B: Everybody. The first hit, of course they will be the small companies and the minor companies and the independent interpreters. Because the problem with these big corporations, what they do, they dump the prices, they do this dumping to be able to compete with the small and medium and independent. And of course that hurts everybody. At the end of the road, the whole community, the whole ecosystem got damaged. Like in a biological ecosystem. The same thing. The little change, the little. When you destroy something inside that ecosystem is going to be a domino effect that is going to affect everybody. And at the end of the row, that is a communication problem. And if we cannot communicate, how we are going to be able to live together, to be able to have peace, to be able to have rights? How, how? There is no way, you know, and I think it's a loss for everybody, not only for as a company, for the whole ecosystem. [00:12:51] Speaker A: And of course, Marissa, we have to talk about the Elephant in the room that I don't think is anymore. The elephant in the room is the whole room which is technology of artificial intelligence and it's here to stay. We've seen the developments. How have you seen affecting the ecosystem or impacting the ecosystem that you are talking about? And is there a way for the smaller companies to use these technologies to make a difference? [00:13:21] Speaker B: If we are going to talk about AI, I think there is two aspects that we have to consider. First of all, it's a good secretary. And like to have a good secretary you have to have a good manager. If you know how to ask what you need in administration. It's a perfect tool with the language part. With the language part we know it's advancing and there is many companies also interpretation companies that they are collecting data from interpreters and creating these AI interpreters. And of course it's taking out business from the small ones and from the LS. There is some LSPs that do B2B that they provide services to another business and that business that companies are losing their business for the AI but depending on the settings. Because for example, I remember when we got, I was an interpreter, I was working as an interpreter of course in person when we got the opi, the over the phone interpretation and we were all panicking because we were going to lose our jobs because over the phone interpreters were going to take us out of business. But the thing is, at least in healthcare, what happened is like over the phone is one dimension. It was not useful for every type of appointment inside a healthcare facility or a healthcare institution. Then when BRI came in it was the same thing. But thanks to the ASL interpreters they did more research because they have more laws and regulations that protect their jobs and the rights of the deaf people. The good thing on there is that they did all this research and they said, well, BRI is not working because the interpreters and the speaker, it doesn't make any sound. The camera will not move. It moves. When it hears a sound that means it's not working. It's bi dimensional and that's a problem. You know, you are losing a part. I think with AI it's going to happen something similar. We use AI in our platform for the receptionist. You know, it's our. We call it community liaison is basic information. If you as a language services provider you use knowing the responsibility that you have putting that on the table, you can use it and it can give more time to the interpreters to interpret to the dispatchers instead to be working As a dispatcher to be taking care of clients, you know, it's a good tool, but we had to know the risk from the patient. For example, in healthcare, I don't think it's going to be imposed very easily. Except they're using that for the translations already inside their systems where they manage the patients. But they have a human on the loop that is the reviewer of the translation. But on the interpretation side, I don't think the insurance companies that that was also like joint commission and all of them, they're going to let use AI, because if there is a malpractice case, who is going to be the witness for the judge? Who is going to be the AI? The AI is going to. Who is going to be responsible for that? You know, I think that is not only if we see like a linear thing, yes, we can be replaced. But when we see all the ecosystem, the whole thing, everything that is involved on this, there is many other factors that they don't have really to be with the knowledge of language. It's not. We interpreters are not only knowing a language, they had to know body language, they had to understand body language. And that's something that for now, AI is not working with. They are very expressive, but they are not reading the body language yet. Patients also prefer in person interpreters and AI, except. And also AI is going to be really, really expensive. It's expensive also for our planet. And it's expensive. It's going to be really expensive. Now they're losing funds and when that funds go away, we'll see what happens. But that's okay. They're going to replace many jobs. Not only interpretation and translation, but that's one thing. Technology is a tool. All the technology is useful. But we as human beings, we have to decide responsibly where to use it and how to use it. That's why we need laws and regulations to guide the institutions or all the different type of requesters that we have how to use it. It's very important to create that and to make them to do a conscious and informative decision about the risk. But technology is good. I love technology. I own a platform, I love technology to consolidate invoices. AI is perfect. Is the most annoying job that the human being can do is try to consolidate thousands and thousands of numbers and invoices. AI does it and doesn't complain. You know, [00:18:58] Speaker A: That should be the way. And that should be the way. Of course there is also the risk of losing one's identity once things start being overly standardized. And then Once you're looking for reducing costs in many places where, you know, we are starting to be hit by reality on how those coasts are. And we should also understand that there are some technologies that are working really well for specific use cases and for others, not so well, but small businesses and you know, independent interpreters are also afraid of losing their identity, losing their autonomy. So how can they, the small LSPs, the interpreters benefit from, from shared technology, operational infrastructure, while remaining truly independent and not just becoming another executor of the same standardized processes out there? [00:19:53] Speaker B: Well, basically when we created interpreting works, like names many things interpreting works we created exactly to have they don't lose their independency, Their autonomy. They don't lose. That is the other way around. From the side of the interpreter. The interpreter is the one who makes a lot of decisions about how she or he wants to work, which rates he or she is going to accept. You know, that also makes to raise the level because if I am in Kansas, to live in Kansas, you need less money. When you live in Connecticut, okay, meaning. But at the same time, the healthcare facilities get paid less money in Kansas that what they get paid in Connecticut, they have more money, they have less money. And putting everybody in this ecosystem that makes the decision about the rates and about how much it's going to charge, how much it's going to pay levels, raise the level. It doesn't go down, it goes up. And of course if you say it oh well, but we are competing with the big ones, but we are many, we can compete with the other ones because we have an excellent quality, we have accountability 100%. Because the platform, what it does, it has all these tiers of providers, language access providers, different types, small, minor, independent, that they are able to collaborate and they help each other. Their customers are so happy because they got in over the phone and video remote. We got 100% of fulfillment rate because we created this. And it's always people covering an assignment. And in person we also have different tools inside the platform. But one of them is the geolocation that what it does, it reads your location at the moment you check out and you check in and check out. And when you check out, the system knows that you are available. And if there is an assignment across the street, the system will send that to you as a first option. We have also last minute in person because like we have the geolocation that works to provide like emergency in person that is not being considered, but many times it's necessary. For example, for DCF Cases for the Department of Children and Family that they have removals of kids. And that's a last minute call and they need an in person interpreter because that normally is like six, eight hours of work. And it's very intense and very. You have to be prepared for that. It's a violent environment that over the phone a VRI interpreter will not work. You need someone in person to be able to contend the situation, you know, and that's a last minute call for in person. And nobody talks about that. We always call on demand for video remote over the phone, but we don't talk about the in person that we have last minute request too. And that's when we kind of be replaced. Okay, the other thing with AI is AI. How is AI created based on data? No, the data that is being collected by many companies and all us. When we use AI, we are adding information to the database, the language of lesser diffusion. There is not enough database to produce AI on the languages. That's other thing. The other thing is all the information that AI is using is going to a common server. Except that companies that they're promoting medical interpretation with AI, they have billions of dollars to be able to protect information. But that's a big HIPAA violation and that's a federal crime. I mean there is many things that they're not related to technology, that they're part of the ecosystem that is going to level the use of technology. Don't panic, don't deny it. Learn how to use it in a very responsible way and teach your clients how to use it. That's what we do. [00:24:35] Speaker A: And of course you're also referring or leading the conversation toward the values around proper language access, ecosystem. You're talking about supplier diversity, small business inclusion. So what role do you think this supplier diversity, small business inclusion should play in public and private language access programs? [00:24:59] Speaker B: Well, they have to be seated at the table. Not only the big companies, you know, being part of the advocacy committees. They have to be sitting because they have the direct contact with the communities. The big companies don't. They can talk about laws and regulations, but they don't have the contact, the direct contact with the clients that are using our services. That means their opinion matters a lot. And at the same time the diversity on the small business, the independent interpreters, the minor business that diversity enrich the knowledge, enrich what we are going to create. Enrich. They need to participate, please. When you see research or they are sending a survey about AI, about this participate. Your opinions matter. It's the most important one because you are really the human to human contact, not business to business. And we need that, we need that on the table. They had to have a space on the table. In our case, me as a small company, I created these webinars. I didn't create it by myself with the UConn University, with the School of Public Health. And they're opening this table to the students of the public health and also to hospital administrators and language access providers, AI providers, professors from the university that teach AI programmers, everybody, LEPs, everybody sitting at the same table and discussing the same subject. And always we finish on the same thing. The knowledge, the responsibility and the risk. That's something we cannot forget about it, you know, because one word can kill a person. One word that is not being well interpreted or translated can kill a person. And that's not a say it happens. One word can make a person to finish in jail being innocent. We have to be careful. We are talking, we are taking care. Human rights. We cannot put human rights on a technology decision, you know, on, on a tool. You will not use your drill for, you know, to make a decision for you. It's the same thing, you know, oh, let me see if it makes a hole, it's yes. If it doesn't, it's no, no, no, no. Tools are tools. And that's what we have to be very clear with, you know, and I think at the table we have to see that everybody's important but the small and you know, small, minor and independent contractors. They have the fresh information there. [00:27:45] Speaker A: Yeah. And of course my follow up question to that is going to be maybe taking a step back into what has happened in the past two to three years. There was a lot of panic around the different executive orders given in the United States. And there was this huge fear that the ecosystem was going to collapse. And there were definitely some risks there. What have you experienced and what have you seen since? Have the ecosystem strengthened because of it? Have you understand something different because of it or what has happened? [00:28:19] Speaker B: Well, from my point of view, of course United States didn't have an official language until the current administration decided to put down the resolution the 1366 that it was from Bill Clinton in 2000. That was when the LEP work was created to assign budget for federal funds and to have language access and everything. However, something. Maybe it's because I'm optimistic, but the thing is that this administration decided to put English as an official language. It opens the door for now we have 68 million immigrants in United States that speak English, another language and 28 for the last census. 28 that around. 28 that they don't speak English. But how many millions is United States? 300, I don't know, 400, I think we are more or less more, Something like that. Yeah. 400 millions. We had to Google it, but I know we are around there. Making English an official language makes Title 6 to apply to everybody. It's not anymore the one who doesn't speak English, it's everybody. That means that gave us more power, but we had to know how to use it. We had to find good lawyers. But that's the thing. I don't think we have to keep fighting for our niche because communication is for everybody. Title VI doesn't talk only about language. Talks about gender, talks about nationality, race, literacy level. It talks about many things. The thing is, because we are on the language industry, we think it's only language. No, no, no, the language is the easy part because it's very simple. It's a very simple filter. Which language do you speak? But when you have a literacy level problem, how do you measure that? Well, they don't come with a sign. They don't say, no, I have this level. No, they don't. And they have rights to communicate. That means sometimes instead to try to be inside the box, you have to get out of the box and start to check your surroundings and see how we can keep going. Not to make our industry survive, to make communications survive. Real communication is, for me, is bigger than the language. You know, I don't know if I answer your question. [00:30:56] Speaker A: Yes, yes, yes, yes. I think, I think, I think it definitely gives us a sense of the direction that we should be taking. And of course, we're coming close to an end of our conversation. But before we will go, I like you to say some words to the members of the ecosystem, to the companies, to the interpreters, to the industry as a whole. What do you think we should be thinking about? What do you think we should be doing? And of course, you come from an activist background, so you are leaning towards action. What are the things we should be thinking about? What are the things we should be doing? [00:31:36] Speaker B: Again, participation, education. Educate your stakeholders, doesn't matter. You work with one company, doesn't matter. Educate them, educate the community that you are serving, you know, and we can do. You don't educate everybody at the same time. You educate one by one. You change things one by one. You are one interpreter. You can change, you can educate an lep, you can educate the doctor, you are providing services one by one and that creates a knowledge base on the community, that the same community will create these changes and these foundations to be able to have a stable communication ecosystem. You know, that that's what we need. Don't despair. Get together, collaborate. If from the business perspective, there is a lot of business for everybody, okay, there is still business there. People need to, to be able to understand and to be understood, you know, doesn't matter which language they speak. I mean, keep going. I always remember when they invented the cars. Imagine the people who was breeding horses and building carts. What happened to them? They had to reinvent themselves. But the transportation was still here. We still have need to transport ourselves. Maybe one day we have some kind of like holographic things that moves us from one place to the other ones. And what's Honda and Toyota and Tesla is going to do? They're going to go out of business? No, they had to reinvent themselves. And maybe they will have the machine where you walk in and you finish in part, you know, in one minute. But the thing is, well, you know, we had to reinvent. We had to grab these new tools, educate and create change. Good change, responsible change. [00:33:24] Speaker A: Thank you. Thank you, Marisa. And of course, before we go, for those that listen to this conversation and are wondering, oh my gosh, I love Marisa's thoughts. I want to learn more about her, about her company. Where can we find more out more about you, more about your company and how to engage with what you do? [00:33:43] Speaker B: Well, you can go to our website, it's www.interpreting.works or send an email to info terpreting that works or contact multilingual [00:33:56] Speaker A: and ask for wonderful. Yes, and we'll and we'll connect you with Marisa. Marisa, thank you so much for doing this and I hope we can have another conversation in the future as things evolve with interpreting works. [00:34:08] Speaker B: I hope so too. [00:34:12] Speaker A: All right. All right, everyone that's here, thank you for listening to localization today. Once again, a big thank you to Marisa Giglio for sharing her vision of a more connected, collaborative and inclusive language access ecosystem. Today, one of the most important questions might not be b what technology can do, but how it can empower people, strengthen communities and create opportunities for organizations of every size. Catch new episodes of localization today on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube. Subscribe, rate and share so others can find the show. I'm Ari Arieta with Multilingual Media. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Arisa. Goodbye. [00:34:57] Speaker B: Thank you, Eddie.