Even as a child, I was an interpreter

Thursday, 05 July 2012


Welcome to my blog! I am Yvette Citizen, a Federally Certified Court Interpreter with many years experience in the field of legal, medical, and conference interpreting and interpreter training. I find that most think it must be fun to be an interpreter. They are correct! On any given day, you can find me dealing with many interesting topics related to the law, healthcare, yoga, or a gazillion other subjects.

Like many children of immigrants, I was a child interpreter. That’s really when my career began.  I had friends and third generation cousins here in the US that didn’t speak any Spanish and since my home, thanks to my mom’s generous hospitality, was a revolving door of visiting relatives from Mexico, I was always interpreting between English speaking children and Spanish speaking children. It was actually fun. What wasn’t fun was interpreting in adult situations.  I would cringe when I’d hear my mom offer that I should go along to help out in whatever business the relatives had in the English-speaking world. “Llévate a la niña a que te ayude con el inglés,” she’d say, offering my fledgling interpretation services.  Next thing you’d know I’d be trying to interpret transactions regarding tractor parts for the broken Caterpillar back in Mexico. The absolutely worst though, were banks and medical clinics. ¡Ay, ay, ay!  Too much for my grade school bilingual brain to handle.

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