ABSTRACT
This chapter reports on a set of interviews carried out with adult immigrants and young adolescents who had interpreted for their parents. By carrying out interviews with these groups, both of whom have experienced communicating through an interpreter or serving as interpreters in a variety of settings. It identifies the kinds of life circumstances that result in a need for interpreters, ways that children are drafted to assist their parents, criteria that parents use to evaluate the quality of an interpretation. Then also identifies criteria that young interpreters use to self-evaluate their own success and failure, and the demands made on young interpreters by the act of mediating interactions. In large part characterized by both social and linguistic inequality between minority and majority group members. The chapter presents the views of adult Latino immigrants and adolescent interpreters about when and why interpreting takes place and the role that young interpreters play in brokering communication between majority and minority communities.
