ABSTRACT
While individuals may make their own decisions to leave their countries of origin to seek out opportunities elsewhere, many among them have little choice. It can be the only way to provide for their families due to persistent poverty, chronic unemployment, or to escape political turmoil or targeted persecution. National and ethnic relations are played out in the behaviors of the many groups caught up in the migratory processes generated by the macro conditions that initiate and shape migration – the Industrial Revolution, colonialism, post-coloniality, global capitalism. The circular, fluctuating, and sustained long-distance, border-crossing character of contemporary migration is an outcome of macro-economic and geopolitical forces involving the flow of people and capital across the globe. For the many migrants who perform vital services – the unskilled laborers, factory ‘sweatshop’ workers and domestic workers – translation services are rare or non-existent both at the time the decision to migrate is made and later when work is undertaken in the destination country.
