In any given day at Bethel’s terminal at the airport, most people speak Yugtun or Yup’ik. A large number of travelers journey to and from of Alaska’s remotest Indigenous communities. The majority of Yukon-Kuskokwim’s retail-priced food products are transported through these terminals, in addition to the necessary items and supplies that people may require in the aftermath of the aftermath of a natural disaster.
These supplies were needed in the year following the typhoon Merbok, one of the strongest storms of recent many years, destroyed homes, fish camps and subsistence equipment in the Alaskan Bering Sea coast.
With Yugtun the most commonly utilized Indigenous dialect in this region The Federal Emergency Management Agency hired the California-based firm Accent on Languages to translate information about disaster aid in Yugtun as well as Inupiaq — an alternative Indigenous language spoken by a large number of people.
However, the moment Julia Jimmie, KYUK’s translator was given a few of the translated materials, she could not be able to comprehend them.
It’s because they were a gibberish.
It is apparent that the company FEMA employed to handle the translations does not have a record of working with any of the Indigenous language spoken by the people of Alaska.
Jimmie was raised in Yugtun.
“There’s lots of Yup’ik. There are children who have grown to be adults with Yup’ik being their first language, and they attend school and study English,” she said. “I message my children in Yup’ik. They reply in Yup’ik, and people are posting Yup’ik-related posts on Facebook and, oh yeah Yup’ik’s still around.”
On September 1, FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell and Chief of Staff, and chief counsel, received a memo in the Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. As per the letter the department is conducting the department is conducting a “complaint investigation” examines the way in which FEMA worked and reacted to Alaska Native communities in the aftermath of the last storm.
This complaint cites KYUK’s inquiry into the translations that were misinterpreted as the main reason why it began its inquiry.
In the document, FEMA seeks to determine “whether there are any systemic issues” regarding the manner in which FEMA collaborates in conjunction with Indigenous groups in Alaska. Additionally, the office will be investigating whether FEMA did not follow any regulations, laws, or even its own rules.
Sam Berlin, who hosts an hour-long radio show on Yugtun on KYUK He said he’s delighted.
“I believe that’s a positive thing to know that they’ll spend the time to help the people who live here, and especially in our community, in the event that an event of this kind occurs it is possible to turn at our government to get some sort of response,” he said.
The mistranslations were especially awry to Berlin who was raised speaking Yugtun as he recalled an era where the federal government banned Alaska Natives as well as American Indians from speaking their language at all.
“Yeah Assimilation: This is exactly what was going on,” he said. “They tried to eradicate this language.”
In an email, U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan wrote that “there is no reason” for the incomprehensible interpretations “that make Alaska Native people without the crucial information they require in times of situation of crisis.”
Sullivan stated that his office would be monitoring closely the investigation.
Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties has not responded when asked to a response on the investigation it was conducting.
Accent On Languages Accent on Languages CEO Caroline Lee declined an interview In an email, she said that she had revamped the company’s quality-control procedures.
“We have enacted … the complete overhaul of our screening, onboarding and evaluation procedures, as well as the requirement that every linguist to sign and follow an uncompromising ethical code,” she wrote.
The deputy director of FEMA’s the external relations department, Lucas Hitt, also did not agree to an interview. FEMA insists that Accent on Languages has reimbursed FEMA for the failed translation project it carried out after Typhoon Merbok. In January of last year,
the agency informed KYUK it was “no no” with KYUK.
Accent on the languages.
According to the federal spending database, FEMA has signed almost $480,000 in agreements with the company since September of last year, but this isn’t the contract that FEMA claimed it had was ending in conjunction with Accent on Languages once the fake translations were discovered. It’s not known what percentage of the money was paid out.
