Star Tribune
Human Services Department comes under fire for poor Hmong translation
The Minnesota Department of Human Services recently removed a Hmong translation on its Facebook page after receiving complaints from Hmong community members and academics that the translation was confusing and riddled with errors.
Bee Vang-Moua, director of the Hmong language program at the University of Minnesota, shared the department’s post on her Facebook account, pointing out problems with the Hmong translation. It was too literal, she wrote, adding that no Hmong elder would be able to understand it.
“The translations are very, very literal,” Vang-Moua said. “If anyone knows anything about translation, it’s never about literal translation. It’s always about conveyance of the meaning and it’s also about language access.”
“There needs to be greater quality control, particularly from our public institutions,” said Lee Pao Xiong, director of the Center for Hmong Studies at Concordia University in St. Paul. “This is not the first time that we’re seeing this from a public institution, and it’s outright insulting that you don’t take care to have somebody take a look, have a second eye on the translation.”
The text of the message, which was posted in five languages on Feb. 5, was a reminder to those with Medical Assistance or MinnesotaCare to update their address and other personal information to avoid coverage interruptions. Native speakers and Sahan Journal staffers who reviewed the other translations — Somali, Vietnamese, Russian, and Spanish — identified problems with the Somali translation, but found the rest essentially accurate.
The English text of the message read: “Covered by Medical Assistance or MinnesotaCare? Don’t risk a gap in your health insurance. Keep your address, phone number and email updated.” It included a web link to the department, which provides health and economic assistance to Minnesotans who qualify.
Vang-Moua said the text was incomplete in the Hmong version and contacted the department. The news organization Hmong American Experience shared Vang-Moua’s Facebook post, spurring dozens of comments criticizing the translation.
Human Services officials posted a note on Facebook saying they had received notice of “significant errors” in its translation, and was working to correct them. They said the department was working with a new translation service.
In a statement to Sahan Journal, Human Services officials said the Hmong post was an old translation and that it had been mistakenly reposted without updating. The translation was posted four times as far back as December 2022, but hadn’t received negative feedback until the Feb. 5 post.
“DHS acknowledges that we need to improve Hmong, Somali and all translations and we will continue to revise content to correct errors,” according to the department’s statement. “We recognize the need to provide more oversight and quality assurance on vendor work.”
Some expressed concerns about whether services like Google Translate were used, but Human Services officials said the department contracts with third party translation services.
The service responsible for the Feb. 5 translation was Atlanta-based LATN Language Solutions, according to the department. It has contracted with LATN since 2018, but sought a new service after LATN’s translations came under scrutiny by employees and community members before the recent Facebook posts. The department stopped using LATN as its primary translation service for public content in April 2023, but still uses LATN’s services internally. LATN did not respond to requests for comment.
Department officials said they have since been working with Minneapolis-based translation service Latitude Prime for its Hmong translations. Translations from Latitude Prime are reviewed by someone who is knowledgeable about the subject matter and is a community member fluent in the translated language and English, according to project manager Emma Yardley.
“It really does take a look at the relevance of the translation in that local area to ensure that it reflects the dialect, and that it’s culturally appropriate,” Yardley said. “A vendor located in a different state isn’t necessarily going to have the resources locally to translate it and do the community review that’s necessary.”
Though Vang-Moua said bad Hmong translations aren’t widespread in Minnesota, she tells her students to let the committee or organization know when a translation is bad. “I give extra credit to my students for taking the initiative to fix these things,” she said.
Because Hmong is a tonal language, one small error in a translation can completely change the meaning of a word, Vang-Moua said. However, she stressed that difficulties in translation can largely be circumvented by hiring experienced, formally trained translators.
Dialectical differences between Hmong speakers are another aspect to consider when it comes to translations. According to Xiong, most public institutions translate English into the White Hmong dialect, known as Hmong Der, while many Minnesotans speak the Green Hmong dialect known as Hmong Leng. Though most Green Hmong speakers can read White Hmong, according to Xiong, not everyone can.
Xiong said he’s received requests from organizations across the country to review their Hmong translations, and often tells them they need to completely retranslate the content. He suspects that many translation errors are the result of companies and agencies contracting with younger Hmong speakers who may not be formally trained.
“They know how to market to the translation companies and all that stuff, and they’re getting these contracts to translate these complex subject matters,” Xiong said of the younger translators. “They don’t know anything about it; they don’t have the vocabulary for it.”
Freelance journalist Abdirizak Diis contributed to this report.
Northern State 35, Concordia (St. Paul) 34: Wyatt Block’s 2-yard TD run and the PAT with 10 seconds remaining lifted the Wolves past the host Golden Bears. Block’s touchdown capped an 11-play, 72-yard drive by the Wolves, who trailed 24-7 in the second quarter. Jeff Isotalo-McGuire’s 34-yard field goal with three minutes, 32 seconds remaining gave the Golden Bears a 34-28 lead.
Winona State 31, Bemidji State 28: Cade Stenstrom rushed for two TDs and passed for 150 yards and a TD to help the host Warriors outlast the Beavers. Stenstrom’s 1-yard TD run and the PAT with two minutes, 10 seconds remaining gave the Warriors a 31-21 lead. The Beavers responded with an 11-play, 93-yard drive to pull within 31-28 with 18 seconds remaining but the Warriors recovered the ensuing kickoff.
Div. I-AA
North Dakota State 59, Murray State 6: The top-ranked Bison built a 42-3 lead in the first half and went on to defeat the host Racers in Murray, Ken. CharMar Brown ran for 97 yards and three TDs for the Bison.
South Dakota State 20, South Dakota 17 (OT): Amar Johnson’s 3-yard TD run in overtime lifted the host Jackrabbits to the victory. The Coyotes opened the OT with a 40-yard field goal.
Youngstown State 41, North Dakota 40 (OT): The host Penguins went first in OT and scored and then stopped North Dakota’s two-point conversion to hold on for the victory. The Penguins sent the game into OT on a 35-yard field goal with 12 seconds remaining.
Div. III
Augsburg 35, St. Olaf 34 (OT): The host Auggies stopped a two-point conversion in overtime to outlast the Oles. The Auggies went first in the overtime and scored on a 25-yard pass from Ryan Harvey to Tyrone Wilson. It was Harvey’s fifth TD pass — the fourth to Wilson. After the Auggies’ PAT, the Oles scored on a 25-yard TD pass from Theo Doran to Braden Menz. But the Oles’ pass attempt for the conversion failed.
After splitting their two-game West Coast trip to begin the season, the Wolves improved to 2-1 with a 112-101 win over Toronto in their home opener. It was a wire-to-wire win that featured some strong bursts of play from the Wolves and other times when their decision-making was suspect. But those moments when they were on, specifically the start of the game and most of the third quarter, were enough to carry them against a shorthanded Raptors team that was without RJ Barrett, Bruce Brown and Immanuel Quickley.
Julius Randle had 24 points while Anthony Edwards had 24 on 21 shot attempts. Donte DiVincenzo had 16 off the bench. Nickeil Alexander-Walker left the game in the fourth quarter and did not return, though he was in the bench area for the final minutes after going to the locker room briefly.
The Wolves’ starting lineup had its best stretch of basketball on the season after that unit started off sluggish in the first two games. Mike Conley, who was 3-for-16 to open the year, hit two early threes to set the tone, though Conley would finish 2-for-8.
Donte DiVincenzo replaced him at point guard halfway through the quarter and continued the hot shooting from the point guard slot with three threes of his own. The Wolves forced five Toronto turnovers and had a 32-18 lead after one.
Coach Chris Finch toyed with some different lineup combinations in the first half as he had Conley and DiVincenzo begin the quarter together while having Joe Ingles run the point later in the quarter. It led to an uneven second, and the Wolves led 56-44 at halftime.
But the Wolves played inspired coming out of the break. Jaden McDaniels, who didn’t take a shot in the first half, had nine points in the opening minutes of the third. Edwards hit a pair of threes as they pushed their lead to 22. The Wolves weren’t sharp closing the night, and the Raptors had the game within right inside of two minutes, but the Wolves had built enough of a cushion.
Rudy Gobert. Gobert had 15 points and 13 rebounds and was the beneficiary of some lobs from his teammates like Edwards, Conley, Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Joe Ingles. Gobert also finished with four blocks.
Gobert had two blocks on one possession in the fourth quarter that got the crowd off its feet and Gobert pounding his chest. Gobert blocked D.J. Carton and Jamison Battle.
Star Tribune
Trump denigrates Detroit while appealing for votes in a suburb of Michigan’s largest city
NOVI, Mich. — Donald Trump further denigrated Detroit while appealing for votes Saturday in a suburb of the largest city in swing state Michigan.
”I think Detroit and some of our areas makes us a developing nation,” the former president told supporters in Novi. He said people want him to say Detroit is ”great,” but he thinks it ”needs help.”
The Republican nominee for the White House had told an economic group in Detroit earlier this month that the ”whole country will end up being like Detroit” if Democrat Kamala Harris wins the presidency. That comment drew harsh criticism from Democrats who praised the city for its recent drop in crime and growing population.
Trump’s stop in Novi, after an event Friday night in Traverse City, is a sign of Michigan’s importance in the tight race. Harris is scheduled for a rally in Kalamazoo later Saturday with former first lady Michelle Obama on the first day that early in-person voting becomes available across Michigan. More than 1.4 million ballots have already been submitted, representing 20% of registered voters. Trump won the state in 2016, but Democrat Joe Biden carried it four years later.
Michigan is home to major car companies and the nation’s largest concentration of members of the United Auto Workers. It also has a significant Arab American population, and many have been frustrated by the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s offensive in Gaza after the attack by Hamas against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
During his rally, Trump spotlighted local Muslim and Arab American leaders who joined him on stage. These voters ”could turn the election one way or the other,” Trump said, adding that he was banking on ”overwhelming support” from those voters in Michigan.
“When President Trump was president, it was peace,” said one of those leaders, Mayor Bill Bazzi of Dearborn Heights. ”We didn’t have any issues. There was no wars.”
While Trump is trying to capitalize on the community’s frustration with the Democratic administration, he has a history of policies hostile to this group, including a travel ban targeting Muslim countries while in office and a pledge to expand it to include refugees from Gaza if he wins on Nov. 5.
