Translators have always been agents of change. The Muslim translators of the School in Toledo, in the twelfth century, for example, and later on unde… - Ilan Stavans

Immigrant life in general is miserable, as one sees in the literature produced by those who experienced the journey.

Translators open the window to the past to welcome fresh air. They are surveyors of what is significant somewhere else and want to bring that significance home. As we make room for new voices from the world, we must diversify the database of translators.

It's a significant fact that upon arriving to Ellis Island, the first thing supposedly immigrants or future immigrants see is that sonnet engraved in the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty by Emma Lazarus. That includes the line, Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses. These are the rejects. This is the refuge of the other nations that have been coming here. And yet it is in English that that sonnet receives those newcomers, a language many of them not yet know.