If you walk down Witherspoon Street to University Medical Center at Princeton, you will pass a grocery and storefront that advertise for remittances and phone cards with special rates for Latin America. Though this sight may come as a surprise, the Princeton area has a sizeable immigrant population that includes Guatemalans, Ecuadorians and Mexicans. P’adelante, the first program I want to highlight, is a student-run organization that teaches English to members of this community and other non-English speakers. Princeton students volunteer one or more days a week for an hour or so, usually working one-on-one with students. Most of the beneficiaries of these programs come from the local Spanish-speaking community and are eager to improve their language skills.
Non-English speakers are often migrant laborers whose given location during the year is often determined by job availability. Most migrant laborers spend the summers in places like Princeton, working in service industries such as landscaping and sending their wages home to their families, and then return in the winter months when jobs are harder to come by.
Regardless of your personal politics, you should recognize that workers come where there is a demand for labor. They wouldn’t be here otherwise: After all, Princeton is an expensive place to live. These people are the backbone of the local working population, but many of them haven’t had the privilege of an American education. Many don’t speak more than a few words of English. This is a problem even from a pragmatic perspective: It makes sense to have easy communication between communities.
P’adelante is also a great way for Princeton students to get a taste of teaching. For instance, Teach for America is a very popular opportunity among Princeton graduates, but many undergraduates apply without real teaching experience. P’adelante is a great opportunity for students to communicate in other languages.
The second opportunity is the translating service at UMCP. Student volunteers work primarily in the clinic attached to the medical center. The program is popular with pre-med students, but due to the fluctuating schedules of college students over multiple semesters, the program has lacked a consistent group of translators. Unfortunately, I am an example of one of these one-semester wonders, but for all of you underclassmen out there, this is a great opportunity to get involved and help people in a real, tangible way.
If you have any interest in going into medicine or, like me, have watched a lot of “House, M.D.”, working in a hospital can be a very educational and rewarding experience. Students typically translate for the doctor during consultations, sometimes during procedures. I once had to give a short lecture on dietary practices for diabetics (not an easy task when your Spanish is as spotty as mine). New trainees must complete a supervision period, during which they can learn the vocabulary and learn to translate off the cuff. The program is run by a friendly and dedicated coordinator, Fredy Estrada. He is very skilled at training volunteers and is a wonderful person to work with.
Overall, I found the experience very rewarding. I learned a lot about people, illnesses and the daily workings of a hospital. It can be intimidating at first, but translating, perhaps more than any other service opportunity, prepares you for the real world in that your work bears far more weight than turning in an assignment. While you don’t get to develop relationships working with students each week, you leave the hospital each day having helped someone in a time of need.
The University offers its students so much. It is only fitting that students should try to give back to the local community that makes the day-to-day operations of this place possible.
Felipe Cabrera is a comparative literature major from Naperville, Ill. He can be reached at fcabrera@princeton.edu.
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