Spanish For Social Change

social justice movement terminology for interpreters and translators - because more bilingual movements are stronger movements!

Saturday, January 16, 2016

Corporatocracy: corporocracia

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A corporatocracy is a society or system that is governed or controlled by corporations. The urban dictionary is more specific, saying that i...
Saturday, January 9, 2016

climatarian: climariano

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Yo he sido climariana por los ultimos dos años - lo cual es a veces un reto en el invierno acá en Ontario, Canada. Pero igual, voy cada sema...
Monday, December 28, 2015

sangre y fuego: blood and bullets

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The 16 min video below looks at the impact of coal in the global South, where coal use is growing even as it decreases in the North. It incl...
Sunday, December 13, 2015

an injury to one is an injury to all

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I have long struggled to find the best way to translate this classic labour slogan. In the fabulous video below (well worth watching) there ...
1 comment:
Tuesday, December 8, 2015

impeachment: juicio politico

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I suppose the full term in English is impeachment proceedings, but we widely just say impeachment. Dilma Roussef is facing a right wing att...
4 comments:
Sunday, November 29, 2015

tar sands: arenas bituminosas

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The type of oil that comes out of the tar sands is called bitumen, which is spelled the same in Spanish, though in English the accent is on ...
Saturday, November 21, 2015

windmill: turbina eólica (molino de viento)

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As a follow-up to last weeks wind farm post , the matching term would be turbina eólica - but I think the more common term is molino de vien...
Wednesday, November 11, 2015

wind farm: parque eólico

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O mas formalmente parque de energia eólica, o proyecto de energia eólica. Wind energy seria energia eólica Lo aprendí en este lindisimo vi...
Saturday, October 31, 2015

charro (in a Mexican union context): sellout

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I've posted before about sindicatos charros in Mexico being yellow dog unions. But I ran into another Mexican use of the term here i...
Friday, October 23, 2015

mostrón/ mostrona: show-off

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Ok, not necessarily social justice related, just a term I like!
Saturday, October 10, 2015

el negro redux

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When I posted before about how to translate 'el negro' used as a nickname I said that blackie didn't seem like a great option, ...
Friday, October 2, 2015

extractivista: extractivist

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I'm at this wonderful two day workshop on Colombia full of Colombianists whose work I've been reading for years.  But I just learned...
Wednesday, September 30, 2015

cacique: political boss

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I'm talking here of when cacique gets used outside of its traditional indigenous referent. I've used strongman for both this and for...
1 comment:
Sunday, September 13, 2015

vacuna: protection racket money

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Ok, my summer blogging break is over! Of course I should be preparing my courses instead, but I'm motivated to post because I have been ...
1 comment:
Thursday, July 23, 2015

racial shifting: auto-reclasificación racial

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As I understand it, this term refers to people changing how they classify themselves on the census and other official forms, without changin...
1 comment:
Thursday, July 16, 2015

negro

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A bit like the last term I blogged, marica , negro is widely used somewhat affectionately in Colombia. Translating it as black man doesn...
1 comment:
Saturday, June 27, 2015

marica: faggot/ fag

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This term gets used incredibly widely in Colombia. Lots of straight people with otherwise great politics use it as a teasing term of affecti...
2 comments:
Wednesday, June 17, 2015

pretendian: fingindio

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I am totally making this one up, but I kind of love it and think it would be as understandable as the English neologism. If you've r...
2 comments:
Wednesday, June 10, 2015

exterminados: extrajudicial killings by security forces (El Salvador)

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In Colombia the euphemism for these is 'falsos positivos.' Exterminados is a bit more honest.  I learned it from the article below f...
Tuesday, June 2, 2015

kayactivism: kayactivismo

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reposted from Grist.org (as you can see, this type of activism has its own methods for banner holding, etc : ) Greenpeace USA A...
Friday, May 22, 2015

hueveo (Guate): robbery

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This translation appears in the fantastic nacla article reposted below on the current protests in Guatemala.  For the record I'm more h...
1 comment:
Saturday, May 16, 2015

living as a non-binary or gender neutral trans person in Spanish

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Radio Ambulante has a fantastic program  here that talks about how you speak in Spanish when you want to avoid having to say estoy cansadO ...
3 comments:
Saturday, May 9, 2015

indignada: outraged

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I'm outraged about unethical and environmentally irresponsible Canadian mining in Latin America, and particularly Colombia.  So I'...
Monday, April 27, 2015

solidario: solidarious

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No, this word is not in the Oxford dictionary, but as I recently argued on my other blog, decolonizing solidarity , I think that we should...
1 comment:
Friday, April 17, 2015

the Ayotzinapa parents caravan terminology request

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I'm going to interpret for a large public event in Toronto where parents of the massacred 43 teachers college students will be speaki...
1 comment:
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