'marrying' little girls; no translators found for trial

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'marrying' little girls; no translators found for trial
Posted by Orange Blossom Special on Sun Feb 7 16:44:44 2010 edf40wrjww2msgDetailOT:detailStr fiogf49gjkf0d Once again, it's a cultural norm http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/criminal/obscure-mayan-language-leaves-justice-tongue-tied/1071371 He was 28. She was 11. Her parents said they gave consent, claiming cultural norms of the Guatemalan highlands. But in Dover, Florida, a little girl with a baby raises questions. When deputies came, Teodoro Pablo-Ramirez understood only some of what they said, according to his lawyer. He speaks no English and little Spanish — just the Mayan tongue of Mam. The indigenous language, understood by few interpreters, has stymied court cases across the country. One interpreting service in Washington resorted to recruiting a Mam speaker out of a jail lobby. In Hillsborough Circuit Court, two cases, both too serious to dismiss, are stalled for lack of a Mam translator. In one, a 4-year-old Wimauma girl was raped. The details are locked inside her mother, who speaks only Mam. And last year, Pablo-Ramirez was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, before the judge granted a motion for retrial. The court could provide only Spanish interpreters. In Spanish, the word "trial" is juicio. In Mam: Tun txi´ jun xjal twitz aj kawil. Pablo-Ramirez lived next-door to the 11-year-old in a cluster of Dover trailers inhabited by migrant workers. He was her brother-in-law. They had sex at least three times in her bedroom, and in the spring of 2005, the girl got pregnant, records show. She missed school and gave birth to a baby boy when she was 12. When she returned, a counselor asked why she had been away. By day's end, a Spanish-speaking detective was knocking on Pablo-Ramirez's door. The man from the western highlands of Guatemala, who has only a first-grade education, had entered the United States illegally a few years earlier. Pablo-Ramirez picked up a bit of Spanish from other migrant workers. His lawyer says he knew just enough to understand the detective's questions. Did he have sex with the girl? Was the baby his? The girl's family returned to their home town of Todos Santos Cuchumatan, Guatemala, and sent a notarized letter to the judge, saying the relationship happened with parental consent. In the letter, the father said that in his culture, boys and girls marry as young as 11. While more than 15 percent of Guatemalan girls are married by age 15, scholars with the Population Council say a pregnant or married 11-year-old is very rare.
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Re: 'marrying' little girls; no translators found for trial
Posted by Easy* on Sun Feb 7 17:58:09 2010, in response to 'marrying' little girls; no translators found for trial, posted by Orange Blossom Special on Sun Feb 7 16:44:44 2010.* edf40wrjww2msgDetailOT:detailStr fiogf49gjkf0d There was a very similar case in California a couple of years ago where the father complained to police because he hadn't received the rest of his dowry for his young daughter. Some cases of beer and some meat IIRC. I think that most of them speak at least some Spanish, but they claim that they don't for obvious reasons.
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Re: 'marrying' little girls; no translators found for trial
Posted by Orange Blossom Special* on Sun Feb 7 18:27:02 2010, in response to Re: 'marrying' little girls; no translators found for trial, posted by Easy on Sun Feb 7 17:58:09 2010.* edf40wrjww2msgDetailOT:detailStr fiogf49gjkf0d * I think that most of them speak at least some Spanish, but they claim that they don't for obvious reasons. * While what you are saying sounds like a valid assumption, AMoriera will want you to cite proof and names of these people. I wonder though how sparse or isolated some groups of people could be in that country. It's also feasible that someone could be isolated in a community, though you usually hear more about native languages vanishing than flourishing.
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Re: 'marrying' little girls; no translators found for trial
Posted by Easy* on Sun Feb 7 18:35:38 2010, in response to Re: 'marrying' little girls; no translators found for trial, posted by Orange Blossom Special on Sun Feb 7 18:27:02 2010.* edf40wrjww2msgDetailOT:detailStr fiogf49gjkf0d I only say that because it was implied in the LA Times article that I read although I think that was a different language. The implication was that while they don't speak Spanish very well, that they would have to speak some Spanish or English to get a job. Maybe they don't speak well enough to understand a court preceding though. And these languages are extremely rare. They have many dialects and it's literally hundreds of people or less in the entire US that can speak it. I think that they should be able to find one of the more common dialects that they could understand even if it's not the same.
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Re: 'marrying' little girls; no translators found for trial
Posted by SMAZ* on Mon Feb 8 06:10:29 2010, in response to 'marrying' little girls; no translators found for trial, posted by Orange Blossom Special on Sun Feb 7 16:44:44 2010.* edf40wrjww2msgDetailOT:detailStr fiogf49gjkf0d and they are not even Fundamentalist Mormons!
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Re: 'marrying' little girls; no translators found for trial
Posted by Osmosis Jones* on Mon Feb 8 07:01:59 2010, in response to 'marrying' little girls; no translators found for trial, posted by Orange Blossom Special on Sun Feb 7 16:44:44 2010.* edf40wrjww2msgDetailOT:detailStr fiogf49gjkf0d Guatemala? I have a bit of disdain for that country after seeing savages there burning a man alive.
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Re: 'marrying' little girls; no translators found for trial
Posted by AMoreira81* on Mon Feb 8 08:04:11 2010, in response to Re: 'marrying' little girls; no translators found for trial, posted by Orange Blossom Special on Sun Feb 7 18:27:02 2010.* edf40wrjww2msgDetailOT:detailStr fiogf49gjkf0d Disagree; they are likely lying in saying that they don't speak Spanish...a judge should force the case to proceed.
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Re: 'marrying' little girls; no translators found for trial
Posted by PHXTUSbusfan* on Mon Feb 8 11:28:04 2010, in response to Re: 'marrying' little girls; no translators found for trial, posted by Easy on Sun Feb 7 17:58:09 2010.* edf40wrjww2msgDetailOT:detailStr fiogf49gjkf0d Interestingly enough (and I don't mean to get on a tangent), as I work for an insurance company, I've noticed that there are several people who (when convenient) claim to not speak English (if Spanish, Chinese, etc. is their first language). They answer the phone: "Hello" but as soon as you introduce who you are to them they say "I don't speak English, or can you get me someone who speaks X langage?" I've had to say that I couldn't, and then the conversation is sometimes able to proceed as normal. It seems to be a trick some people use to get out of things, feigning ignorance of the language.
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Re: 'marrying' little girls; no translators found for trial
Posted by AMoreira81* on Mon Feb 8 12:34:45 2010, in response to Re: 'marrying' little girls; no translators found for trial, posted by PHXTUSbusfan on Mon Feb 8 11:28:04 2010.* edf40wrjww2msgDetailOT:detailStr fiogf49gjkf0d There ought to be a way to fix THAT problem.
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Re: 'marrying' little girls; no translators found for trial
Posted by Osmosis Jones* on Mon Feb 8 14:13:58 2010, in response to 'marrying' little girls; no translators found for trial, posted by Orange Blossom Special on Sun Feb 7 16:44:44 2010.* edf40wrjww2msgDetailOT:detailStr fiogf49gjkf0d I wonder if those sick fucks also engage in incest. I'm going to sound like a racist saying this, but I heard that a lot of Hispanics engage in incestuous behavior with relatives as closely related as first cousins. My brother's friend who's Puerto Rican even admitted that he and his half-sister had used to have crushes on each other.
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Re: 'marrying' little girls; no translators found for trial
Posted by Olog-hai* on Mon Feb 8 17:26:22 2010, in response to Re: 'marrying' little girls; no translators found for trial, posted by PHXTUSbusfan on Mon Feb 8 11:28:04 2010.* edf40wrjww2msgDetailOT:detailStr fiogf49gjkf0d They answer the phone: "Hello" Almost everyone who speaks a so-called "Indo-European" language does that.
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Re: 'marrying' little girls; no translators found for trial
Posted by SelkirkTMO* on Mon Feb 8 17:46:26 2010, in response to Re: 'marrying' little girls; no translators found for trial, posted by AMoreira81 on Mon Feb 8 12:34:45 2010.* edf40wrjww2msgDetailOT:detailStr fiogf49gjkf0d Federal law ... have them answer the phone in Japanese ... "Mushi-mushi" ... problem solved. :)
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Re: 'marrying' little girls; no translators found for trial
Posted by Orange Blossom Special* on Mon Feb 8 18:03:27 2010, in response to Re: 'marrying' little girls; no translators found for trial, posted by SelkirkTMO on Mon Feb 8 17:46:26 2010.* edf40wrjww2msgDetailOT:detailStr fiogf49gjkf0d Answer in Chinese and they'll say Sorry boss and apologize.
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Re: 'marrying' little girls; no translators found for trial
Posted by Easy* on Mon Feb 8 20:56:57 2010, in response to Re: 'marrying' little girls; no translators found for trial, posted by Olog-hai on Mon Feb 8 17:26:22 2010.* edf40wrjww2msgDetailOT:detailStr fiogf49gjkf0d People that speak Spanish and usually Mandarin don't.
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Re: 'marrying' little girls; no translators found for trial
Posted by Easy* on Mon Feb 8 20:57:11 2010, in response to Re: 'marrying' little girls; no translators found for trial, posted by Olog-hai on Mon Feb 8 17:26:22 2010.* edf40wrjww2msgDetailOT:detailStr fiogf49gjkf0d People that speak Spanish and Mandarin usually don't.
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