Mental Health and Language Brokering 

In many immigrant families, children tend to hold multiple responsibilities that their native-English speaking counterparts do not in order to keep their families stable and help them adjust to American language and culture. These responsibilities have a great possibility to ruin the relationships between the child and guardian and stress out the child involved. Among these responsibilities is language brokering, a method in which a child acts as a translator for a parent or guardian in order for them to communicate with English speakers. This can range from everyday transactions at a grocery store to more important and private conversations like doctor’s visits or bank calls. These responsibilities can greatly affect and damage the children and their relationship with their guardian(s). These adults have to face a great difference in culture and language and as there are little to no plans put in place to help these individuals, it makes sense that they look for ways to adjust to their new home, and under certain circumstances this could even be beneficial to the child. However, in general, language brokering has a negative impact on the children in these situations. Specifically, language brokering tends to have an adverse impact on Hispanic and Latino children. 

This is an important topic for many reasons, as presented in the video “Understanding Language Brokers”. PBS and Su Yeong Kim, a professor in the department of Human Development and Family Sciences and the daughter in an immigrant family, created this video to posit that language brokering is something that developmentally affects children, but is often left out of conversations, even those that concern psychological development. Kim does this by explaining her own personal experiences as a language broker and saying that she never heard her experiences or those like hers talked about, instead focusing on whiter or anglicized American families. Their goal with this video and their studies is to identify what the conditions of language brokering are in order to understand the emotions, both good and bad, that come with it. Kim claims that children who translate for their parents perform better than those who do not, but the stress that comes with it can cause adolescents to act out and become delinquent in order to escape the stress (PBS, 2019). Authors Jennifer A. Kam and Vanja Lazarevic in their article “The Stressful (and Not So Stressful) Nature of Language Brokering: Identifying When Brokering Functions as a Cultural Stressor for Latino Immigrant Children in Early Adolescence” assert that language brokering can be positive or negative for Latino adolescents. They support their assertion by providing context for the need of language brokering and then presenting data from multiple studies and giving the context for that, including where the studies fell short in their data-gathering procedures. The authors want to inspect the effects of language brokering on bilingual adolescents and how those effects came to be. They have a formal tone for their audience, other researchers or people interested in language brokering. They also explain the idea of general strain theory, “Agnew (1992) developed general strain theory to explicate why individuals participate in delinquent behavior. Tenets of general strain theory suggest that individuals are more likely to engage in delinquent behavior when they experience a strain(s) and do not have a strong supportive environment,” (Kim and Lazarevic, p. 1995). In short, people who face stress and do not have a support system will tend to turn to dangerous or unlawful behavior in order to deal with it. We can support this claim by looking back at “Understanding Language Brokers” and thinking back to the way that the children reacted negatively in the face of the stress that comes with translating for their families.  

There are also other reasons why adults rely on the children in their families to translate for them. “Children as “language brokers”” is an article published by TermCoord, a company made to help translators perform their jobs, that explains the background behind the establishment of language brokering within families and why it became necessary for them. They do this by pointing out the fact that there are not any professional translators that they are given access to, and their children usually have an easier time adjusting to the day-to-day and pick up the language at a faster pace than the adults. Their purpose is to explain the background of this phenomenon and why it exists, as well as its effects in order to get them to further analyze the ways in which America doesn’t help the immigrant families and children that come to the country. They establish a formal tone with their audience that illustrates their knowledge of the topic. In their article, they state, “In most of the cases professional interpreters are not available. Besides, parents prefer trustworthy persons that can handle the negotiation with discretion and confidentiality. More often parents prefer the older children of the family (as they are perceived to be more mature) and in particular girls to be the “brokers” of the family, as it is evidenced by the researches (Weisskirch, 2010)” (Children as “language brokers”, 2015). This quote explains the need for these translators and why their children usually assume this position. Gabriel P. Kuperminc, Natalie J. Wilkins, Gregory J. Jurkovic, and Julia L. Perilla in their article, “Filial Responsibility, Perceived Fairness, and Psychological Functioning of Latino Youth From Immigrant Families”, imply that family responsibilities, especially in a culture that pushes familial connections and support, can greatly impact adolescents who have to deal with these responsibilities. They develop this claim by giving context for these situations, explaining that in certain conditions this can actually benefit the children, then referencing a multitude of studies that relate to the responsibilities they face and explain how they can change the mental state of the children. Their purpose is to inform the audience in order to prevent more damage or understand what’s happening and get the audience to develop a more nuanced view on the topic. They adopt an informative tone for those who are looking to learn more about the effects of filial responsibility. They explain that filial responsibility is described as the responsibilities that the individual has to their family. Another important point they bring up is that the culture of these immigrant families tend to place a high value on loyalty, blood, and helping one another. In this way, the children can feel a sense of duty from both their family and their culture itself, which can, in turn, place more pressure and stress on them and negatively affect their mental state. These two articles both illustrate the reasons why language brokering is important to so many immigrant families and why they developed in the way that they did. “Filial Responsibility, Perceived Fairness, and Psychological Functioning of Latino Youth From Immigrant Families” extends “Children as language brokers”, adding to the context and explanation of language brokering as a practice, and supporting the claim that the families relying on their children to translate for them makes the most sense logistically, if not developmentally. 

Adding to this train of thought, Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” also supports the claim that language brokering is needed for immigrant families to adjust to American life and survive and support their families. In her essay, author Amy Tan illustrates the way in which she uses “different” Englishes and how they were created in a way due to her mother’s “broken” English. She does this by describing the way her mother used English and how she relied on Tan at times to deal with certain situations where “perfect” English was necessary to be taken seriously. Tan wanted to show people that someone’s English shouldn’t need to be “perfect” in order for others to respect or communicate with them. Her tone is light-hearted, but assertive, making her message clear to her readers. In one specific example, Tan describes the way in which her mother had her pretend to be her mother on an important phone call because she knew that the man wouldn’t take her seriously if she answered and didn’t speak “proper” English. This embarrasses Tan later on, but it also illustrates how immigrants know they aren’t going to be taken as seriously as their native-English speaking counterparts and reinforces the idea that they need to use language brokering in order to live in America, as referenced in “Children as “language brokers””. These two sources support each other in their implication that immigrants in America be able to speak English themselves or have someone else who does, immigrant families would not thrive in America without fluent English. 

However, it’s important to remember the possible negative effects that this can have on children. In “The Stressful (and Not So Stressful) Nature of Language Brokering: Identifying When Brokering Functions as a Cultural Stressor for Latino Immigrant Children in Early Adolescence”, Kam and Lazarevic acknowledge that some children may feel a sense of efficacy in translating effectively and in turn, having higher self-esteem. But they also cite studies with the conclusion that, “With respect to brokering, studies have demonstrated positive associations between brokering and externalizing symptoms among Korean adolescents in 9th grade (Chao 2006), as well as alcohol or tobacco use among Latino adolescents (M = 13 years old; Martinez et al. 2009). Guided by tenets of general strain theory, Kam (2011) found that as Mexicanheritage early adolescents (6th–8th grades) engaged in brokering more often, they reported increased family-based acculturation stress, and in turn, were more likely to consume alcohol and engage in other risky behaviors” (Kam and Lazarevic, p.1996). This can lead to the conclusion that children of different ethnicities will react differently to language brokering and its progression, most likely due to the culture and family relationships that surround them. In the same train of thought, another facet of this conversation is the way in which the children’s relationship with the adult they’re translating for can affect their experience or can be affected by the experience. In the article, “The unique family dynamic: children ‘language brokering’ for their immigrant parents” author Prabhy Rehal points out the unique situation that is created by language brokering. She does this by quoting multiple experts, a professor and a child language broker who are former language brokers themselves. Her purpose is to examine the unique and specific relationship that is created through the process of language brokering and the effects it has on the child-guardian relationship we are used to seeing. One example is from University of British Columbia Professor and second-generation Canadian Anusha Kassan, ““Having to ask their children for something, when, not long before arriving to Canada, they were the providers,. they were the ones with the knowledge, the ability and the skills, that role reversal can be difficult,” she said,” (Rehal, 2022). This claim illustrates one aspect of this relationship, the reversal of the usual parent-child roles. In this situation, the parent has to assume the role of the one in need while the child must take the responsibility of helping their parent, taking their needs over their own. This leads to the second aspect, which is the child assuming the more labor-intensive role and feeling either proud of their role in helping their family or like their responsibility is a burden and it’s unfair for them to take on this task. 

“Having to ask their children for something, when, not long before arriving to Canada, they were the providers,. they were the ones with the knowledge, the ability and the skills, that role reversal can be difficult,”

University of British Columbia Professor and second-generation Canadian Anusha Kassan

Based on this idea, there are studies that focus on the burden this may place on the children. Dr. Sarah Crafter wrote an article that focuses on the research she’s done to examine child language brokers. In her article “Child language brokers: the middle children.”, she illustrates the way in which a cultural psychologist, Evangelia Prokopiou, used children’s art to describe how they felt when they had to translate for their parents or others. They both wanted to examine the psychological effects that language brokering had on children and how these responses compared to one another. The workshop led by Prokopiou featured artwork from nine children and another sculpture-themed workshop had another nine children, though the sculptures focused more on the identity of the artist rather than their feelings on language brokering. There were a variety of responses, from the stress of translating for a parent over the phone to a “very important person” to translating for a friend in a foreign place. This picture specifically portrays how a child feels about the stress that comes with language brokering, how she views her mother in these moments, and how her mother’s actions add stress to the situation for her. This picture supports the previous comments and claims that the way the scene is set for the child can greatly affect the way that the child will view language brokering and how much language brokering will adversely affect them. 

Language brokering is just one of many responsibilities for children of immigrant families, and it is necessary for many immigrant families to survive in America. It has the possibility to negatively or positively impact the children who act as translators for their parents or guardians. Although this is a necessary setup for many families in order to keep up with daily life and culture within America, it can easily affect the relationship between the two parties, for the adult, the role change may make them feel less than or as if they’re relying too much on their child, and for the child, adding an extra stressor or a chance to prove their self-worth to another. Their cultures add extra pressure to take on this responsibility and add stress to doing well. They must do well, because if they don’t, at times it has the possibility to damage their whole family. Beyond the relationships with their guardians, these children are at a higher risk to commit crimes or consume drugs or alcohol in order to deal with the added stress that comes with language brokering. And although each translator is at risk for this, Latino and Hispanic children are at an even higher risk than others. The way in which language brokering is introduced and presented to a child as well as their environment and support system has a great impact on the way in which they perceive their responsibility. However, even with the possible positive effects, the impact that language brokering has on a child and their life in general, is negative.