.jpg)
In Touch with Tennessee
In Touch with Tennessee
Nashville's Mayor Speaks to All: How Interpretation Makes Metro Addresses Accessible
The Tennessee Language Center and Nashville Mayor's Office have pioneered an approach to civic communication that's transforming how local government connects with all residents. Through professional simultaneous interpretation, Mayor Freddie O'Connell's State of Metro addresses have reached over 6,000 Spanish-speaking Nashvillians who might otherwise miss critical information about property taxes, public safety initiatives, and the city's $3 billion transit improvement program.
A partnership with the Tennessee Language Center and the Nashville Mayor's Office made Mayor Freddie O'Connell's last two state of metro addresses more widely accessible. The annual speech, typically attended by civic leaders, city officials and community members, was offered in Spanish in both 2024 and again in 2025. Behind the scenes, the work was anything but simple. David Morales and Marcela Pena, both seasoned interpreters, provided real-time interpretation of the mayor's remarks to Spanish-speaking residents tuning in across the city. Hi and welcome to In Touch with Tennessee, a podcast of the University of Tennessee Institute for Public Service. Joining us today to talk about this partnership to make the State of the Metro address accessible to more Nashvillians are Jenna Linton, a project manager and trainer for TLC, and Julie Smith, senior Director of Communications for the National Mayor's Office. Thank you both for being here today. Thanks for having me, susan.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 1:So, Julie, let's start with you. Why did the Mayor's Office decide to offer the State of Metro address in Spanish?
Speaker 2:Sure. Well, I think we all know that one of the most important things as a communicator is to make sure that you're reaching your audience where they are and not where you want them to be. And we know that in Nashville, about 19% of our population or so speak English in what one study described as less than very well. And looking at our most common non-English languages very well, and looking at our most common non-English languages, spanish is at the very top, followed closely behind by Arabic. And so as we thought about our message and also how we could get it out into parts of the community that maybe feel underrepresented by the city or haven't engaged with them in the past, we decided to work with Jenna to bring Spanish interpretation for the state of Metro.
Speaker 2:The first year we also did Arabic interpretation. This year we chose to do an Arabic translation because we just didn't have as much pickup in the interpretation as we had hoped with the Arabic language. So we did translation of the speech and posted that online in Arabic to see a little bit how that would work out. In comparison to doing the interpretation this year, I will say we saw a much larger pickup of the Spanish language interpretation of the speech, and I think we'll continue to see that grow as we continue to offer more options to people in terms of how they receive our message.
Speaker 1:Okay, and what has been the response? One to the interpretation of the live address. And then you mentioned that you offered the translation in Arabic this year. So what has been the response?
Speaker 2:the translation in Arabic this year. So what has been the response? We saw a lot more people picking up on the Spanish interpretation this year, and I can let Jenna go into some of those numbers, but I think what you see is a feeling of more inclusion in your government. People are certainly feeling a little disenfranchised at the moment, and having the option to engage with your government in the language that's most comfortable for you I think is very well received in a lot of parts of our community, especially the community where they may not normally know important things like that your property tax rate is going to drop, but that doesn't necessarily mean that your property taxes are going to go down.
Speaker 2:We had a lot of really important messages to communicate this year that have a real impact on people's day-to-day lives. Things like schools, government services, like standing up a new Department of Waste Services for our city, as well as the safety programs that we're investing in. For example, we had, unfortunately, a school shooting in January, and one of the things that the mayor supported in this budget is the addition of 23 school resource officers. We also are adding a new transit security division and we're expanding the MNPD's flex unit that provides support when there's major demands in certain areas of the city. So there are real safety messages that we wanted to make sure we're getting out to all of our community, not just those who speak English.
Speaker 1:Right, right, okay. So, jenna, talk to us about what went into the process of setting up the interpretation leading up to you and then the night of the address.
Speaker 3:Sure. So, first and foremost, a project like this involves a lot of coordination. We are one art or piece of this larger project that the mayor's office is organizing, so for us to do what we need to do, we really depend on the coordination with the mayor's office and, luckily for us, that's always been very easy. So it starts with them giving us plenty of notification, as they've done both years, that hey, we want to do this, and coordinating with people like Julie and other members of our team Patrick Hamilton was super helpful, lauren Gallipo was super helpful, just, you know that back and forth via email to get our questions answered, understand what they're needing and what resources are going to be available. For us to make that happen is the first step, the most important step, and then the second most important step is making sure that we have the interpreters who can take on the job.
Speaker 3:Not all interpreters possess the skills needed to take on something like this. Simultaneous interpretation is very high skilled and on top of that, this is speeches where people are speaking very quickly and it's also more advanced vocabulary, government vocabulary. So we don't have a whole lot of interpreters with that skill level. And so finding the people who can do the job. Marcella Pena and David Morales are, without a doubt, two of our most talented interpreters across the state of Tennessee and they were able to take on this project, and then, beforehand, we take care of some translating. That needs to be done, and the other important piece is the logistics, so making sure that the technology is in place so that the simultaneous interpretation is happening alongside the event on the day of that, it's being broadcast properly, that people can hear, and that there's different avenues through which people can access that interpretation.
Speaker 1:Okay, Okay, and you know, and Julie, maybe you can speak to this a little bit more about the technology. How was the interpretation offered? I mean through online, an online platform has really worked really closely on this.
Speaker 2:One of the great things about working with Jenna's team is, you know, we're all familiar with going in and everyone having different headsets and with something like the state of Metro. We have a very large audience. This year I think we were expecting anywhere from four to 500 people and we actually had overflow rooms because we had more than we could accommodate in the space.
Speaker 2:So, providing interpretation to such a large audience was challenging and, working with Jenna's team, we did it via Zoom, so everyone could just call in to a specific number and listen to the interpretation of the state of metro address, and that really allowed us one, to advertise it in advance. Two, to push it out to our Spanish language television stations, some of whom just picked it up and used it wholesale as like a pool service. And three, to use our social media mechanisms to also share that address and get it out through our YouTube channel as well as through the Zoom interpretation. But I don't know, Jenna, if you want to add a little bit more, because I know your team handled most of the logistics on that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, you summarized it pretty well. There were sort of three avenues and because of the three avenues I think we were able to reach such a wide audience, the three avenues being, as Julie mentioned, zoom. So you know, normally for simultaneous interpretation, people who want to listen in will have equipment With. In this case, because we have so many people that we want to be able to reach, we had to get a little bit creative and it worked well last year. So we did it again this year to actually create a Zoom call where the interpreters you know, part of their microphone is going into this Zoom and so anyone who wants to hear the Spanish interpretation can actually call into the Zoom and listen in.
Speaker 3:And then the second avenue was the channel, the mayor's office channel, where the simultaneous interpretation was being broadcast on their YouTube channel. And then the third, and I think the one that really reached the most audience, was having a microphone in front of the interpreters that was directly connected to the live feed from National Noticias and that allowed for a very wide audience to be reached, because a lot of Spanish speakers are used to tuning into National Noticias to hear, to learn about what's going on in their city. So those three avenues allowed for over 6,000 people Spanish speakers to listen in and hear what the mayor had to say about what's going on in the city where they live.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's great.
Speaker 2:I'll add one more thing, which was following the address, jenna and her team provided us with interpretation to go on the recording, so that way we could post the full state of Metro address with translation or, I'm sorry, with interpretation, to our YouTube channel. So then anyone who went to the YouTube channel to see parts of the speech or all of the speech, could see it in either English or Spanish.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, okay, Okay. And Jenna, you talked a little bit earlier about the difficulty with the real-time interpretation. I understand the interpreters alternated during the address.
Speaker 3:Yes, okay, and the reason they do that is because simultaneous interpretation is a mode of interpretation where the interpreter is listening, understanding and transferring the message into the other language at the same time as the speaker. So it is mentally very exhausting, and I always tell people who want to get an idea about simultaneous just try and listen to your favorite radio show and just repeat it back in your own language, not even transferring it to another language. Just try to keep up repeating what you're hearing and you'll get a sense of how difficult it is. And so, because it is so mentally taxing when you do simultaneous interpretation, you do need to have two interpreters who can then switch off and give each other a break. So there's been plenty of research done on this topic, and what we know at this point for sure is that after about 20 to 30 minutes of simultaneous interpretation, the quality just drops substantially because the brain is so tired, and so we have the interpreters switch off. Between you know, every 20 to 30 minutes they'll switch off, give their brain a rest and come back in, and that's a very important coordinated effort that happens between the interpreters who, in this case these two interpreters have worked together before.
Speaker 3:They've done these types of things together before and that friendship and experience working together is so critical, so that they kind of have a flow and they know how to communicate with each other non-verbally, to let the other one know, hey, I need a break, I need you to jump in. And then they'll also ahead of time. They'll kind of like find pauses or breaks, natural breaks in the speeches where it would make sense for them to then switch off. And that's a really important and challenging effort that goes on between those interpreters, because you can't get too behind. If you get too behind you're losing what you're hearing and then you you know there's no making it up. Especially in this case where they're reading from speeches. They're speaking probably more than 200 words a minute. So that effort between the two interpreters of finding the right place to switch off is so important and takes a lot of teamwork on their part.
Speaker 1:Right, well, that's fascinating. Can you tell us a little bit more about the Language Center's translation and interpretation services in general? Sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely so. Our department is really responsible for ensuring communication between people who speak English and people who don't speak English, and we do that through translation and interpretation. Translation is written documents and interpretation is oral translation, if you will. So in the case of the translation area, we get a lot of requests, from hospitals, for example, who want to get their forms translated. With this particular project, we had a request to do the translation of the speech into Arabic so that Arabic speakers could read the words of the mayor.
Speaker 3:So anything that ends up as a written document is translation, and that is a huge and very important piece to language access, to following the guidelines of Title VI and ensuring that citizens in your county or in your state have access to important information in their language. And then the interpreters do the work of actually physically going to these different locations, such as clinics, such as law offices, the courts, schools, and interpreting in real time so that they create an environment that mimics the environment two English speakers would have. So when an English-speaking parent goes to a school for a meeting, they're talking directly to the teachers. Well, the interpreters are going there, to that physical location and creating a situation where that Spanish-speaking parent or that Somali-speaking parent can speak directly with the teacher and have that you know communication without any barriers, right? So that's what the interpreters are there to do, and so we do those two things, and we also do a lot of training and professional development to make sure that our translators and interpreters are up to date, that they are constantly working on their skills, improving their skills, that they're having opportunities to grow, getting opportunities to learn more about how things like AI will affect their work and how they can adapt to better fit the needs of clients in the future.
Speaker 1:Okay, and Julie, can you talk a little bit about?
Speaker 2:you know you all provided interpretation for the state of metro address Some of the other areas in which you provide, you know, translated material, say, for your, your non-english speaking citizens yeah, absolutely, and I, as Jenna was speaking, I was thinking I left out one really important language that we provided for state of metro, which was was ASL and making sure that our constituents who are deaf or hard of hearing can also participate. That's something we always try to do and provide for the State of Metro address as well. So I left that one out and I wanted to put that quick note in there. So, moving forward, one of the things that I'm actually working on now is a language access plan for the mayor's office. The city as a whole has a language access plan through our human rights um commission and one of the things that we look at is how can we provide more information in languages that our residents speak? So I'll take the Mayor's Choose how you Move Transit Improvement Program as an example. We translated the one-page fact sheet for that program into multiple languages, from Spanish to Arabic, to Haitian, creole, vietnamese, somali, burmese. We had as many languages as we could think of to translate that fact sheet into so that people would understand what was going to show up on their ballots in November. So, looking at that and the success of that, because it helped our council members who have a deep knowledge of the languages and the communities that they represent, to feel as though they could come to the mayor's office and say. To feel as though they could come to the mayor's office and say we would really like to educate our constituents more on this and we really need it in this language. And I would work with Jenna to say, hey, do you have a translator who could work with us to get this one pager translated? So, moving forward, we're looking at how we do more of that.
Speaker 2:Looking at how we do more of that, I actually this year proposed more funding for translation and interpretation services in the mayor's office budget. This is the first time we've really done that and I will tell you I, right away, like almost as soon as I submitted it, was like this is not going to be enough, because as soon as you start to see it and do it, then the more you're going to need it, and so I have a feeling that we're going to run out of that budget really quick. But it is really just an effort, like I was saying earlier, to say to our residents we appreciate you and we want you to be able to interact with the community, with your government, in a way that's most comfortable for you and be sure that we can get them urgent information or information that's really going to impact their lives in more of a real-time scenario and less you know that they're getting it through a third party.
Speaker 2:Jenna and I have talked, for example, about the mayor's Friday media roundtable. He does it each week and a lot of times Noticia and other Spanish language television outlets and online outlets will come, but it's all in English and I know that they're streaming it in English, but for residents who don't speak that language and they're tuning in to hear information in Spanish, I imagine that that's quite frustrating, and so Jenna and I have talked a little bit about how do we serve that audience a little bit better so that they can be more participatory in what's happening in the city, especially right now when we have so much going on that we want to make sure people know about. You know we have a new fiscal year, we're about to invest a lot of money in our community. We have a transit program that's going to make $3 billion worth of improvements to our transportation system over the next 15 years, and all of that information. We can't leave out segments of our population just because they don't speak English as a native language. Right.
Speaker 3:Oh, I'm so sorry, susan. No, that's okay, go ahead. You know, not just to literally put the words in the other language. The translators, the interpreters, they make these messages culturally appropriate. So it's not. You know, we think of translation a lot of times as something very literal, but our translators and interpreters are doing so much more than that. They're bringing the message to these communities. That respects what the you know. In this case, the mayor's office is trying to communicate while at the same time making sure that those communities, those non-English speaking communities, are receiving the message in a way that they are going to understand in terms of their language and their culture.
Speaker 2:I will put an exclamation point on that, because in another job that I had in a different city, we had a campaign we were launching where the literal translation from English to Spanish was not appropriate. I believe the theme was like home is where the heat is, or something along those lines. Like because it was a heat like energy assistance campaign, and our translator contractor came back and was like so when you interpret this, this like, directly into Spanish, it does not mean the same thing. So we need to work on your translation here, because otherwise people are going to be like it's what now?
Speaker 3:So yeah, and this is why I just I appreciate that it's, you know, it's such a high level of government. They're really making an effort to work with, um, work with people who can actually do appropriate translations and interpretations, as opposed to what a lot of organizations will do, which is just like Google, translate it and um, you know it, it just doesn't work, Um, and so the whole purpose, the whole goal, what you're trying to achieve, is really just lost, because if it's not translated in a way that is understandable, then at the end of the day, nobody's going to understand what you're saying anyways nobody's going to understand what you're saying anyways.
Speaker 1:Okay and Julie, are there any plans in the future to offer interpretation of the state of metro address in other languages, or will you all just kind of keep an eye on that?
Speaker 2:Well, I know we're certainly going to continue to offer it in Spanish and we wanted to look at the translated state of Metro into Arabic this year and see if we saw a little more pickup. I think part of the challenge is we need the community outreach component of this to go alongside the offering. So it's one thing to offer it, it's another thing to make sure people know that you're offering it. And, as Jenna was saying once, noticias said oh great, you're offering interpretation, can we just put our microphone here? That was a total game changer in terms of the number of people that we were going to reach.
Speaker 2:So I think it's a little bit of looking at the landscape, identifying where our greatest need is. For example, we may have a large number of people who speak one language but they're also very English proficient, versus maybe smaller group of people who have very little English proficiency, but maybe they're just like a smaller group who speaks a different language. So we try to look at that landscape and say where does the equity lie in this? Where do we have the greatest need for people who are, as the report I was reading said, less than very well is how they're speaking English. So what does that look like and how do we reach them and what are the outlets that we can partner up with to make sure that the message gets out, and then working with Jenna and her fantastic team to see if we can source interpreters. I think it's something we're always looking at and it's something, certainly, that we're not going back. We're definitely not going backwards on this one, and we're only going forwards.
Speaker 1:Thank you both for joining us today and thank you listeners. Be sure to subscribe to In Touch with Tennessee, where you find your favorite podcasts.
