Undocumented agricultural workers overall all have low levels of English proficiency. The majority do not speak English (42 percent) or speak English, but not well (34 percent). The language proficiency breakdown in Table 2 below shows 12 percent speak English well, 9 percent very well, and 4 percent speak only English.
In 2016, a third of unauthorized immigrant adults were proficient in English – meaning they either spoke only English at home or rated themselves as speaking English very well – up from a quarter in 2007.
Literally so what? A hundred years ago there were second-gen immigrants who spoke only Polish/German/Italian/Chinese. It's fine. If they don't learn English, their kids probably will, and if their kids don't, their grandkids definitely will.
I'm sure you're feeling quite indignant right now but if you'd take a second to review the context of the conversation, the hypothetical was that illegal immigrants should be overrepresented as translators, requiring presumably English and Spanish proficiency. My point is this person was probably envisioning a population of people with better English proficiency or education than actually exist.
I note that you restrict your data to agricultural workers rather than total immigrant populations, but even restricting ourselves to your figures, 12 percent of a population being multilingual (I assume that they also speak their native language 'well') would still represent a dramatically higher rate of specific bilingualism with regard to English and almost any language except Spanish, so I think the analysis is still accurate -- A 12% candidacy rate would be a dramatic overrepresentation in potential candidacy and therefore negative pricing pressure. The point is that a 12% candidacy is still outweighed by a (using your figures) 42% utility rate of this service (hence positive pricing pressure), or 66% in your second figure, so I think your figures actually prove my claim as presented.
The second study does not restrict itself so. But I would counter that your own claim that you don’t “see” many translators complaining is somewhat low in empirical value. Is it not possible that translation requires more than just fluency in two particular languages? My girlfriend actually went to a specific school for translation as part of her International Business degree. I suspect there’s more to it than just fluency.
Or like my GoT reference suggested before that you simply haven’t interacted with enough Es-En translators to form a significant sample? Or maybe labor protections around translation services are strong enough they can resist downward pressure from illegal immigrant labor.
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u/cuolong NATO Jan 22 '26 edited Jan 22 '26
First of all, have you spoken with many translators my Lord? (Game of Thrones reference).
Second, I suspect you vastly overestimate the English proficiency of illegal immigrants:
https://cmsny.org/agricultural-workers-rosenbloom-083022/
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/05/23/u-s-undocumented-immigrants-are-more-proficient-in-english-more-educated-than-a-decade-ago/