4 - Santa Brigida Revisited

Summary

This chapter presents an alternative to the failed political translation process discussed in Chapter 3. In reaction to the failure of the City Hall meetings, community organizers who had worked as voluntary linguistic interpreters at City Hall mobilized different groups of outraged citizens and residents to establish a Santa Brigida Community Forum that would be chaired and facilitated by the immigrant residents directly affected by the planning project, which threatened resident evictions. The activist organizers reduced their role to that of bilingually translating the deliberations in Spanish and English and at the same time intervening if one of the city council members tried to ignore residents’ proposals. This conscious political translation method dramatically changed the tenor of the deliberations, since no facilitator or official interrupted residents’ speeches. The city council members changed their positions during the meeting following interventions by the residents, leading to a change in the final vote at City Hall. While one would expect local democracy to be most inclusive if residents have elected their own representatives, this chapter reveals the advantage of having grassroots political translators who are able to build a third, communicative space for radical democracy that interrupts the asymmetric roles between decision makers and the less privileged.