The Pearl of the Antilles: Cuba

Long before the arrival of the Spaniards to the Caribbean, the island of Cuba was populated by Native American Indian tribes, that is to say, “siboneyes“, who lived in the caves and lived from hunting and fishing; “taínos” who excelled in clay pottery and practiced agriculture; and “guanajatebeyes” who were nomads and populated the western coasts.

On October 27, 1492, Christopher Columbus sighted Cuba on his first voyage.  The next day, Columbus landed, christening the port with the Christian name of “San Salvador“, “Savior”, where he touched land and, naming “Juana“, the island which he thought to be a continent.  Between 1508 and 1509, Sebastián de Ocampo navigated around the island and in 1511, Don Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar initiated the conquest of the same land.  In 1512, the city of Baracoa, at the northern tip of Cuba was founded; in 1513, Bayamo on the southwestern side; and in 1514, Trinidad in the southern middle, Sancti Spiritus, Santa María del Puerto Príncipe, Santiago de Cuba, and La Habana were established as the first seven (7) cities in the New World for the Americas.

 

The indigenous population was divided out to the entrusted and appointed landholders, “encomendaderos“.  However, abusive work, hard labor, and disease from the Old World, dominated the Native American population which motivated the introduction of African black slave labor on the island of Cuba.

The Christian Catholic King of Spain, Don Fernando II, ruler of Aragón, became married to Doña Isabel of Castilla, with equity in the exercise of power.  In the 15th century, at the beginning of 1482, the King and Queen of Spain developed military campaigns for the Reconquest of the Moorish lands which escalated to the seize of Granada, in Andalusía, Spain, circa 1492.  During the same year, the Muslim Arabs surrendered in Granada and Seville to end eight (8) centuries of Islamic control which sealed the Christian conquest for the Spanish territories.  Simultaneously, the discovery and exploration of the New World in the Americas by Don Christopher Columbus, occurred during the same times, in 1492. 

 

Christopher Columbus was a Spanish-Italian sea explorer and navigator (who was probably a native of Genoa, born in 1451 and lived until 1506, in Valladolid, Spain).  At the time, Columbus believed that in order to arrive at the East of the world, there was a route by sea to the West.  With the protection of Don Juan Pérez, Prior of La Rabida, Christopher Columbus was granted the signature for Capitulations of the Holy Faith, according to which, Columbus received the title of Admiral, Viceroy, and Governor of the lands he discovered in the New World.

 

On the first voyage, Columbus sailed from Puerto de Palos on August 3rd, at the command of the Spanish galleons “carabelas“, la Pinta, la Niña y la Santa María, and arrived to the island of Guanahaní, “San Salvador“, on October 12, 1492.

 

Christopher Columbus discovered Cuba on October 27, 1492, five hundred and twenty (520) years ago, and the island christened “La Española“, Hispaniola, also known by the Amerindian name of “Quisqueya” or Haití, where he established the Spanish fort Nativity.  On December 5, 1492, Columbus discovered the island known today as the Dominican Republic and Haití.  Afterwards, he returned to Palos and was received with triumph in Barcelona, Spain.

 

Upon the return to Spain from the discovery of the New World in the Americas by Christopher Columbus, the Spanish Catholic monarchs arranged before Pope Alexander VI the concession of the ecclesiastical Alexandrian edicts which assigned to the Spain the new territories in the New World. Since Portugal had closed the route to the spices for Castilla, Spain, Christopher Columbus had a projected mission to reach the Orient, in the East, by way of the Western (Occident) which was accepted and sponsored by the Catholic King and Queen, reigning monarchs of Spain.

 

Columbus’ accounts of his voyages in the New World remain in the Archives of the Indies as the documented description of an ethnographer, ethnologist, and ethnolinguist in the Americas.  Christopher Columbus provided and recorded news and first impressions about the native indigenous inhabitants in the Caribbean and of the lands he discovered along the way.

 

The Republic of Cuba is an insular state of Central America.  Cuba represents the island known for the same name of the country, in addition to the island of Youth or Isla de Pinos, other smaller islands in its surroundings, and some 1,600 adjoining islets known as keys or “cayos”, such as Key West, also known as Cayo Hueso.

 

Cuba can be found in the middle of the Caribbean, between the Strait of Florida and the old Channel of the Bahamas to the North; the eastern section of Cuba faces the Windward Channel; the southern littoral looks upon the Caribbean Sea or the Antilles; west of the Yucatán Peninsula and northwest toward the Gulf of México–only 99 miles from the United States of America, close to the states of Florida, Texas, Louisiana, and Alabama in the south.

 

Geographically, the island of Cuba extends in the shape of an arc from the northwest to the southeast with a longitude of 1,255 kilometers, from the tip of Cabo San Antonio to the point of Maisí.  

 

The topography of Cuba is made of predominant plains or hills, with the exception of the mountain ranges of the Sierra Maestra to the southeast, which features the elevation called Pico Turquino, the highest point of view in Cuba, at 1,974 meters in altitude, and other smaller mountainous extensions, such as the Sierra del Escambray at the center of Cuba with the Pico San Juan at 1,056 meters in altitude, and the mountain chain known as “cordilleras de los Organos”, which hardly rise above 690 meters in contrast to the elevation for the Pan de Guajabón.

 

The Cuban seacoasts are flanked by a great number of islands and islets.  These maritime keys emerge up to considerable distances from the Cuban littoral in the Caribbean.

 

Cuba has more than 200 rivers, generally not long enough, but with impetuous currents.  Among the major Cuban rivers is El Cauto which floods the surroundings areas of Santiago de Cuba during tropical storms, hurricanes, and cyclones, that is to say “maritime twisters”, and is required to be controlled by a river dam, “la represa del Cauto”.  In addition, there are the rivers called Cuyaguateje, Sagua La Grande, Sagua La Chica, Aguabama, etc.

 

The Cuban climate is softened by tropical and maritime breezes.  

The Spanish colonial city of Santiago de Cuba was founded in 1514, nestled among a series of hills near the mountain range of the Sierra Maestra, in the heart of the eastern municipal district of Oriente.

 

The architectural design of the building constructions have been adapted typically over time to the mountainous topography and frequently, the lower back rooms of the houses are found at a lower level than the front upper rooms of the same houses in Cuba.       

 

Spain called Cuba “the Pearl of the Antilles”.      

 

Original Translation into English from Spanish Source:  2000 Nuevo Espasa Ilustrado.  Diccionario Enciclopédico.  Espasa Calpe, S.A. (1999), España

Consulting Media Arts Communications©2012 Gardenia Hung. 

All Rights Reserved.

How Are Languages Used As Communications Tools in the 21st Century?

As we move through the new millennium, we need to focus on how languages are used as communication tools in the 21^st century to promote understanding, listening, cooperation, trade, military security, and peace in the world to become more effective and efficient communicators. 

Technology, research, and developments in communications for the 21^st century will regulate how languages will be used as tools in diverse professional fields and disciplines.  In addition, the application of languages as communication tools in the 21^st century is subject to the existing influence of political and socio-economic developments in the world.

According to Philip Howard in his Foreword for The World of Words.  An Illustrated History of Western Languages, new revised edition, I quote, “we can only guess that hundreds of thousands of languages have been spoken since the beginning of the world, from the fact that 2,769 languages are spoken around the world today (the figure depends a bit on what one counts as a language)”.   

Human communication is defined as the process by which people exchange information.  Languages are forms of communication in our everyday world.  We use languages to communicate on a daily basis at home, work, with friends, at leisure.  Languages are an indispensable way to function, interact, and exchange information, especially as our world becomes closer.  Thus, languages become communication tools in the 21^st century as work issues, military protection, and concerns in the world evolve from local to global to become “glocal” in the international arena. 

Given the multilingual population in our planet Earth, there is a need to communicate and listen in more than one language in the U.S.A. and around the world.  The process of active listening is an essential and important factor in communication because it allows us to perceive selectively what the information exchange entails, without overlooking details and steps to follow directions. 

The need to communicate effectively and efficiently in the 21^st century requires a mandatory acquisition of another language, in addition to English, which fulfills an educational requirement in the our country and overseas.  Thus, in the same way that “Education is a tool for success”, languages are used as tools in the 21^st century because these facilitate the process of communication around the world.

Tools are means by which we ease our interaction in a work environment and around us.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defines a tool as anything regarded as necessary to implement one’s occupation or profession.  Since languages in the 21^st century are used to perform one’s job, as the work force travels and relocates around the world, in response to employment and military deployment, labor supply and demand, then languages become communication tools in the 21^st century. 

International companies in the United States and around the world require personnel to travel on demand where employee skills are needed.  Consequently, employment relocation and logistics are common factors for global work in the 21^st century.  An awareness and knowledge of languages is an underlying pre-requisite to international employment, deployment, and travel.  So, if one knows two or more languages in the world, chances are that one will travel for work or leisure and become more effective and efficient as a communicator and an employee…

We need to discuss how languages are used as communication tools in the 21^st century to promote understanding, cooperation, trade, and peace in the world. 

Technology, Research and Development: 

                      Videophone,  Videoconferencing, Global Positioning

                      Systems World-Wide Assistance with Satellites,

                      Student Centered Distance Learning for Remote Rural Areas, 

                      Internet Delivery of Instruction On-line, Email Tutorials,

                      Intranet Web-Based Educational Environments
                     Audio Computer-Based Test for ESL Listening Skills

Understanding:   Interpersonal, one-to-one basis, people-to-people;

Interpreting—Consular, Commercial, Legal, Medical, Technical, On-line; Translation—Electronic, Commercial, Legal, Medical, Technical

Listening:               The process of active listening is an essential and important factor in communication because it allows us to perceive selectively what the information exchange entails, without overlooking details and steps to follow directions.        

 Cause and Effect:  The application of languages as communication tools in the 21^stcentury is  subject to the influence of political and socio-economic developments in the world.  

We need to foster the use and application of languages in education to facilitate communication in a global and local sense, around the world  and in our own communities to become effective and efficient communicators. 

The application of languages as communication tools in the 21^st century is subject to the influence of political and socio-economic developments in the world.

©2012 Communications, Languages & Culture, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.

Certified Legal Interpreting and Translation in Illinois, USA

I started language interpreting for Action Translation with the Illinois Industrial Commission in Chicago at the James R. Thompson Illinois Government Center when Joseph Raudonis used to live in Palos Heights, Illinois—I found a job wanted ad in the newspaper and telephoned Action Translation for assignments translating legal documents for Spanish into English.

Then,   I met Carmen Kenny, a legal interpreter at the Arbitration Center in Chicago, who was looking for a freelance interpreter and translator who could share legal interpreting assignments in the Chicagoland area, travel on-site to judicial hearings, arbitrations, depositions, and translate legal documents upon assignment for Carmen Kenny & Associates based in Arlington Heights, Illinois.

A colleague referred me to Arroyave Academy of Languages managed by Guillermo Arroyave himself in Highland Park and Arlington Heights, who was looking for a communications cross-cultural consultant who could teach foreign languages, interpret, and translate from English into Spanish, French, and/or Portuguese, available for travelling around the Chicagoland area—throughout the counties of Cook, Lake, Will, DuPage, Kane, Grundy, LaSalle, etc.

I had been working for Berlitz Schools of Languages in Chicago, Hinsdale, Oak Brook, and Schaumburg as a language cross-cultural consultant. 

By professional referral and networking, I was contacted by Inlingua Schools in Chicago to work as a professional cross-cultural consultant, language interpreter and translator on-site, in the Chicagoland area.

In addition, I was a member of the American Translators Association and Chicago Area Translators and Interpreters Association.In 1990, I found a newspaper job ad from Diplomatic Languages Service, Inc. , based in Virginia, looking for language interpreters and translators in Chicago, Illinois.

During the 1990’s I interpreted and translated for several Translation Agencies:  Burg Translation, Palencia Language Services,  Interlate Systems, Inc., Linguistic Systems, Inc. in Boston, Massachusetts, Access Translation managed by Rosa Ridderbusch in Lake Zurich, AIM Translations in Bloomingdale, Illinois. 

Professional Certified Translator, Interpreter for Communications, Languages & Culture, Inc., Consulting Media Arts Communications

©Copyright 2012 Communications, Languages & Culture, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.

A Community Interpreter

In September 1977, when I was a freshman at Northeastern Illinois University, in Chicago, Illinois, I used to work as a student aide at the Financial Aid Office, for the Veterans Administration Scholarship department and the UNI Scholarship department, when I was not in class, and I also helped the front desk accepting student financial aid forms and advising students about registration procedures. Since Northeastern Illinois is an urban university, the majority of the student population were urban minorities who commuted to school and work to get a college education in Chicago.

Many of the students were Spanish-speaking people who had just arrived from Mexico, Latin America, the Caribbean or Spain and needed to enroll in college courses to learn English and get a college degree or validate their college transcripts from their former countries in the United States.

Since these students spoke Spanish only at the beginning at UNI, whenever they went to the Financial Aid Office, they required an explanation in Spanish of all the financial aid requirements to apply for the Pell Basic Grant, the Illinois State Scholarship and/or student loans. When I was not completing Veterans’ Scholarship forms, totaling veterans’ points for scholarship after military service, typing award letters and post cards for the veterans, filing, and/or managing awards letters or denials for other scholarship funds, I would be asked to work at the front desk informing students and answering the telephone in English and Spanish.
If a Spanish-speaking student was interviewed by a financial aid counselor who only spoke English, sometimes I would be called to interpret from English into Spanish. In so doing, I enjoyed the rapport and the language interaction with my fellow students and fulfilled my responsibility to the community by helping Spanish speakers become mainstreamed into the English-speaking community at Northeastern Illinois University and in Chicago, as I had been during my high school years where I only spoke English and French, in a Catholic parochial school, Madonna High School on the Northwest side of Chicago.

After completing my core curriculum for my Bachelor’s Degree, I decided to focus on double majors in Education to teach languages like English, French, and Spanish, Writing, and minor in Linguistics and Athletics. Having had four years of English and French in high school, I was accelerated into more advanced courses in these two disciplines, so I completed my major requirements early enough that I could regain my usage of the Spanish language through specialized coursework for bilingual Spanish speakers. As I became more proficient in my colloquial use of the Spanish language for bilingual speakers in the Chicago area of the Midwest, I interacted between English and French easily, thus I became multilingual. I graduated from Northeastern Illinois University after five years of study with a B.A. in Secondary Education, Type (09) Illinois State Teaching Certificate, English, French, Spanish, and minors in Linguistics, Writing, and Athletics.

It was through one of my friends, Maureen, that I started doing translation work and language instruction at Translingual International. I also taught at Berlitz Language Schools in Downtown Chicago and surrounding suburbs. Later on, I began to interpret at the Illinois Industrial Commission through Accurate Translations for workers’ compensation arbitration hearings for Spanish-speaking employees who had been injured by work-related accidents.

The last two years of college, I was referred and recommended by my French teacher and her physician friend, for a summer job working for an European travel insurance company, GESA Assistance, S.A., based in Barcelona, Spain, with branches in the U.S., Belgium, France, United Kindgom, Germany, Italy, Portugal, some Scandinavian countries like Sweden, Japan, Australia, Mexico, the Caribbean, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Africa. I was hired part-time as a travel insurance representative to assist European travelers with medical-related and other insurance claims, while traveling in the Americas and around the world.

All GESA personnel spoke English, French, Spanish, Dutch, German, Catalan, Portuguese, Japanese. Most of these travel medical insurance claims were handled through telephone interpreting, facsimile, and designated agents and physicians in the corresponding countries. Assistance was provided on a 24-hour basis and full medical claims reports were written in English, French, Spanish, Dutch, and any other required language to be passed on via facsimile or by telephone relay to the insurer’s country of origin. Many times I was required to provide emergency medical assistance on world-time, that is to say, observing European time, 8-10 hours ahead of U.S. time, contacting Doctors-on-Call or Physicians Without Borders to effect repatriations, emergency hospitalizations, and/or contact attorneys for legal interventions.  During these emergency situations, I developed a quick way to contact medical personnel and/or legal assistance through a zip code grid identifying the area where the insured called by zeroing in on the address zip code to quickly locate assistance on call, at the last minute. This approach was later on used to organize the U.S. GESA Assistance response to the emergency calls from the insured travelers around the world.

Although this part-time job was not well remunerated, I enjoyed working with foreign nationals who traveled world-wide, interpreting and translating for their claims over the telephone, and using multilingual and cultural skills in an international U.S. and European company. I felt I was a community interpreter as I became an essential link between the insured traveler and the GESA Assistance network around the world.

In the past, I have also worked with a federal agency in Virginia, as a community interpreter assigned to federal investigative work under strict confidentiality. In addition, I have done extensive legal interpreting for workmen’s compensation at the Industrial Commission in Chicago; as well as in the Illinois judicial system in Cook, DuPage, Kane, Will, and LaSalle counties. While doing graduate work for communications at the University of Illinois Hospital in Chicago, I was a also a volunteer community interpreter at the Emergency Room for elderly Spanish and English-speaking patients for a study sponsored by the Gerontological Society of America.

Having worked for the U.S. Department of Labor as a medical claims examiner, and as an insurance customer agent for travelers, also provided excellent background for medical interpreting experience to teach Medical Spanish at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn.

So, I have become an incidental community interpreter, in addition to being an educator in Illinois, as I fine-tuned my language skills in English, Spanish, French, and later studied basic Portuguese and Japanese in graduate school at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

As a community interpreter I feel that I am able to help people using languages to communicate better and assimilate in the community where they live for the benefit of all involved, you, me, and the community. Thus languages are not only used to express our thoughts, ideas, and emotions, but also become working tools for communicating the needs of the community within cultural contexts in the 21st century.

“Frequently Asked Questions about Interpreting” by G.C. Hung, M.A., B.A.,  http://www.americantranslators.org/divisions/FLD/fldfaqs.htm
TIP Lab Seminar for Interpretation and Translation by Holly Mikkelson, Ph.D.

©2012 Communications, Languages & Culture, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.

Tiffany Rotunda Mosaic: Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet with Native American Indians

A National Historic Landmark at the Marquette Building illustrating the history of Chicago and the Illinois country.

Owen F. Aldis was a real estate developer, fanatic historian, and one of the building’s original owners, who translated Jesuit Father Jacques Marquette’s original journal in 1891, thus christening the structure with his name and inspiring artists to illustrate the explorers’ journeys with their Native American companions at the Marquette Building, a national historic landmark honoring the history of Chicago’s expedition by Marquette and Jolliet.
Courtesy Photo: GHung