“I Love Lucy” Interpretation

When I was a little girl, I loved watching “I Love Lucy” reruns.  For someone that didn’t know English too well, it just always made me laugh.  The situations that Lucy would get herself in were just hysterical, and the way that Ricky would blow up on her in Spanish, well, it was just all too hilarious to little me.

My favorite episode is “Paris at Last.”  In this episode, the whole gang goes to Paris for the first time.  Lucy gets swindled into exchanging her American dollars for counterfeit franks, then later gets arrested after paying a restaurant with said money.  Once in the French jail, Lucy has no idea what’s going on as she does not speak French, and no one there speaks English.  After managing to call Ricky for help, he arrives at the jailhouse speaking Spanish.  The Sergeant seems to get an epiphany and calls for a drunk prisoner from the back, only adding to Lucy’s confusion. 

The following scene is my favorite television scene of all time.

The Sergeant, who only speaks French, speaks to an officer, who repeats that phrase in German to the drunk prisoner, who then repeats that phrase in Spanish to Ricky, who then repeats that phrase to Lucy in English.  When Lucy needed to speak to the Sergeant, they would simply reverse the language order.  It got even more hilarious when they would imitate each other’s gestures down this line of interpretation.  (Please watch for yourself 👇🏽)

Little did I know that I was watching relay interpretation and that I would one day do the very same thing countless times in my professional career.

The first time I ever had to do relay interpretation was in Urwangadub, San Blas, Panama.  We were on a very remote island that belonged to the indigenous Kuna people, and the primary language was Kuna.  It was a fascinating dichotomy: toddlers only spoke Kuna, elementary school-aged children spoke both Kuna and Spanish, those fortunate enough to attend High School spoke English on top of the other two languages, and any adult over 30 only spoke Kuna. 

You see, this island had integrated Spanish language teaching in elementary schools only 5-10 years before our trip, which is why any adult only spoke Kuna.  Since the adults only spoke Kuna, their young children only spoke Kuna.  It was only once the children started attending the island’s primary school that they learned Spanish.  On that island, there was no school beyond 6^th grade, so those that could afford to attend High School would have to travel to another island to do so, and that is where they were taught English.   

One day we went on a hiking trip to another nearby island to pick pineapples.  We took a break to enjoy slices of the best pineapples I’ve ever tasted in my life!  We also took this time to learn more about the Pastor that had taken us on this trip.  Since he was over 30, he only spoke Kuna.  The youth pastor knew Spanish and Kuna, so we created our own little “I Love Lucy” line of interpreting, where the Pastor spoke Kuna, the youth Pastor related his message to me in Spanish, and then I related it to the group in English.  I remember cracking up at the fact that I was doing a real-life reenactment of my favorite television scene. 

Oh, but the fun did not stop there!

Fast-forward about six years, and I once again find myself doing this “I Love Lucy” interpreting.  This time around, it was in an actual immigration courtroom.  I had taken over someone’s assignment last-minute due to an emergency, and I had no clue it was a relay interpretation assignment; I didn’t even know what that term meant!  When I saw the Quiché interpreter, I thought he was simply there for a different case.  This poor man had to explain to me the logistics of how we were going to make this work…simultaneously!  Luckily, I had an experienced relay interpreter and a very kind and patient judge, and while I was nervous and shaking inside the entire time, we made it work. 

Since that first official relay interpretation, I’ve had countless more with various indigenous Latin American languages, including Kanjobal, Mam, Nahuatl, and Kekchi.  It seems like the agency has made me their go-to Spanish relay interpreter, with two cases slotted for me this upcoming Monday. 

Due to the current pandemic, one of the Los Angeles immigration courtrooms has “social distance courtrooms,” where the judge resides in one courtroom. The rest of the parties are either on the phone or appear via teleconferencing from another courtroom.  The equipment at this location makes it so that we must interpret in consecutive mode, which triples the time it takes to get through a relay interpretation hearing.  As a result, the hearings are both prolonged and more exhausting than usual. 

At the end of a relay hearing, I come home more exhausted than usual.  When asked, “Why are you so tired today?” I simply reply, “I had an ‘I Love Lucy’ case today.”  Trust me; my family knows exactly what I mean.