[Music]
many of you have probably taken foreign
language classes or maybe you're taking
one right now well I actually grew up
here in Austin and when I was in sixth
grade I got a form in front of me that
said Spanish or French they asked us to
pick which language requirement class we
were going to be taking the next year
and without really thinking about it I
chose Spanish but that decision set off
a chain of events that have impacted me
through middle school high school and
even now in college at first it was just
another class in my schedule but that
but as I advanced through the classroom
levels of Spanish I started to feel this
enjoyment for learning the language and
a curiosity for all the new tenses and
vocabulary we were learning so I
embraced this enjoyment and I took it
with me to high school where I went
beyond the requirements and took more
advanced managed classes I also became
increasingly interested in Latin
American cultures as well
I joined leadership of Spanish Honor
Society and participated in pan-american
student forum of Texas with the
mentorship of some great teachers and I
really dove deep into my interests in
this language and in this culture but
the most pivoting moment for me in my
study of Spanish was probably in 2016
during my senior year of high school
when I had the opportunity to volunteer
as a bilingual translator at an election
poll until that day I never really had a
chance to speak Spanish outside of the
classroom other than with my teachers or
with my peers and classmates but I
walked into that poll room and there was
so much commotion and noise and a lot of
chaos everyone was trying to figure out
what to do and how to get through the
voting process and I remember a woman
called out for me my boy they say Oh God
can you help me and I was nervous but I
looked over at her
she looked nervous too and she looked
lost and confused about the process so I
went over and I did my best to help her
and she looked at me and thanked me and
that day I realized that Spanish was
more than just learning new vocabulary
it was about learning how to communicate
with an entirely new population and my
ability to speak to her in her native
language was in part what helped relieve
some of her anxiety and stress and
helped her calmly understand the voting
process that day I learned a few things
there is power in the knowledge of
foreign language and there is difficulty
and being the only person in a room who
can't speak English and that feeling
comes with feelings of isolation
loneliness separation and distance but
the knowledge of foreign language has
the power to break down that barrier and
create trust and connection between you
and a complete stranger and that is
powerful so I took these ideas with me
when I graduated call it when I
graduated high school and went on to
college and I wanted to explore these
ideas further and study them so I took
all of the advanced Spanish classes that
my college had to offer and I began to
volunteer at a local nonprofit clinic at
the clinic my role was as an interpreter
which meant that I would sit in on a
patient appointment listen to what the
physician had to say in English and say
it in Spanish to the patient and then
listen to what the patient had to say in
Spanish and say it in English to the
physician at the clinic is where I first
observed the language barrier in action
alongside several other socially
determined factors that influence health
care so the patients would talk directly
to me about their treatment and as soon
as they found out that I spoke Spanish I
could see this light in their eyes they
all of a sudden trusted me to understand
their emotion their pain their questions
and their concerns because they could
only fully
express those things in Spanish and
connection and Trust and Sue when a
patient can speak directly to a health
care provider in their native language
that's something that's incredibly
valuable and that I've been able to
experience directly by talking to these
patients in fact I remember one time one
patient and his family thanked me and
hugged me outside of the appointment
room and I was shocked because I'm not
the doctor I'm just a translator but
that had so much more meaning to it than
I thought it did now there is a shortage
of translators which means that
physicians and patients have to have
these broken conversations where not all
of the information can get across and
that leads to a decreased likelihood of
patients complying with their treatment
and a decreased likelihood of patients
coming back for follow-up appointments
for example at the clinic where I
volunteer we have a lot of diabetic
patients and in that case the physician
has to explain to the patient how to log
their blood sugar before and after every
meal when they get home and how to
inject insulin in different areas of
their body but if they can't get that
information across then the patient
doesn't know how to do those things and
can't comply with the treatment and
they're also discouraged from coming
back that shows that language is an
extremely important factor in
determining patient health outcomes in
fact in 2018 Moyock & Bowen showed in a
study that language barriers cause poor
patient outcomes misdiagnosis and
impaired confidence and services
received for patients from low-income
populations just going to the clinic
itself as a barrier because the time
that they used to do that can be used to
work and increase their income at the
clinic where I volunteer a lot of times
the appointment slots for patients
weren't long enough for the physician to
get all of the treatment procedure
instructions across so I was often asked
to sit in the waiting room with the
patient after their appointment and
explain how to log blood sugar
and inject insulin while the physician
moved on to their next patient because
there just wasn't enough time that meant
that the patient had to stay even longer
than they had planned for in the clinic
therefore I've started a project called
the diabetes education program where
groups of students who are learning
Spanish can come together and create
educational materials like videos and
flyers that help explain the
instructions of the diabetes treatment
procedure all in Spanish so that
patients can be can take them home and
understand how to do everything at home
this program also includes a in-person
session that would allow patients to be
encouraged to come back for follow-ups
as well as be able to ask students
questions in person this is a quote from
Nelson Mandela if you talk to a man in a
language he understands that goes to his
head if you talk to him in his own
language that goes to his heart I never
thought that a small decision I made in
middle school would impact my academic
direction and my professional future in
such a large way but now I understand
that our worlds can be a little more
connected if we take the time to step
out of our own and into that of another
person so if you had to remember one
thing from my talk today I would really
like it to be to value your knowledge in
foreign language and use it to its
fullest extent read write listen speak
practice and take one step further and
collapsing language barriers and
rebuilding human connection thank you
[Applause]