The city of East Lansing is translating different documents into five languages as an effort to ensure equal access to the international community living in the city.
MSU East Lansing Together: Promoting Outreach through Translations, or MELTing Pot, is an alliance between East Lansing and the College of Arts and Letters’ Center for Language Teaching Advancement, which gives language students an opportunity to translate important documents for the benefit of international residents.
“We’ve recognized for some time that language access is key to ensuring equal access to city services and amenities for all residents and visitors, regardless of their national origin,” East Lansing Mayor Nathan Triplett said.
The project started with a document that lists different resources for international students, refugees and immigrants, Triplett said. Other official documents will be translated in the future.
The document can be found in five languages that the project has focused on — Chinese, Arabic, Hindi, Spanish and Korean.
Executive Associate Director of the Center for Language Teaching Angelika Kraemer said the experience of translating official documents would benefit both international and domestic students.
“This is another way to foster engagement among our students and help connect them and make the learning experience more meaningful and deeper,” Kraemer said. “This is a wonderful pre-professional opportunity for both of the students — the international student and the domestic student.”
The students helping with the translations will be under the supervision of graduate students and faculty members. The domestic students will be paired with international students.
“We want to pair students — so international students who are native speakers of the languages in question with MSU undergraduate students who are learners of those languages,” Kraemer said.
Triplett said the translation of official documents sends a message about the welcoming culture of East Lansing.
“As the number of international students and scholars, refugees and immigrants in our community increases, it becomes more and more important that we be mindful of the steps we need to take to make our services and amenities accessible to these new residents,” Triplett said.
