Published on August 12, 2024

Dr. Nora Rivera, currently working at Chapman University in Orange, CA, USA, is one of two exceptional scholars who won the ProComm 2024 Lufkin Award. We reached out to her to provide more information about her work, her collaborations, and more. Her research and areas of interest include Latinx and Indigenous rhetorics, technical and professional communication, intercultural communication, and UX.

The James M. Lufkin Award recognizes the best conference paper submitted to IPCC Proceedings. The winner is selected by the IPCC/ProComm Conference Committee in consultation with the Society’s Awards Committee. The award was re-named for James M. Lufkin in 2008. James M. Lufkin served multiple terms on the PCS AdCom (now BoG) and multiple terms as Society President.

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Traci Nathans-Kelly (interviewer, TNK): Your paper titled “Carrying Meaning, Bridging Worlds: Indigenous Language Localization in Western Courts” was selected for the 2024 Lufkin Award at IEEE ProComm. Tell us a bit about how you landed on this article’s topic, which provided such an interesting and provocative perspective.

Nora Rivera (award winner, NR): Thank you so much for your interest in my work. I have been working with Indigenous organizations in Mexico since 2018 when Dr. Mónica Morales-Good—a colleague and good friend from the University of British Columbia—invited me to help organize the first International Unconference of Indigenous Interpreters and Translators in Oaxaca, Mexico, to create tools that could help with the professionalization efforts of interpreters and translators of Indigenous languages. We worked under the leadership of the Centro Profesional Indígena de Asesoría, Defensa y Traducción (CEPIADET) [Indigenous Professional Center for Legal Counsel, Defense, and Translation], a nonprofit run by Indigenous attorneys from Oaxaca, Mexico. Since then, I have worked with various Indigenous organizations on projects related to language, primarily establishing a strong long-term partnership with CEPIADET.  

The work described in “Carrying Meaning, Bridging Worlds” delineates a research project that expands my work with Indigenous professionals and their journey to create tools that not only help them professionally but also could impact institutional policies that often overlook the needs of Indigenous individuals. In this project, I collaborated with eight court interpreters to prototype glossaries of legal terms in various Indigenous languages from Oaxaca needed in both Mexican and US courts. The glossaries are tools that can be used in professionalization efforts. And analyzing the glossaries and the localization practices of the interpreters collaborating on this project gives Indigenous court interpreters tools to substantiate what they have known all along. Technical terms in English or Spanish, European languages, do not have equivalents in Indigenous languages and, therefore, interpretations have to be contextualized and explained. So, another important goal of this work is to help revise outdated codes of ethics used in courts to dictate unrealistic—and unfair—expectations of Indigenous court interpreters.

From left to right: Gaby de León, Coordinator of Interpreters and Translators at CEPIADET; Nora K. Rivera, Assistant Professor at Chapman University; Tomás López Sarabia, Chairperson of the Board at CEPIADET; Pilar Valenzuela, Professor at Chapman University; Edith Matías Juan, Project Coordinator at CEPIADET. Oaxaca, Mexico. Dec. 2023. (Photo by CEPIADET).

Fig 1: Rivera’s collaborators. From left to right: Gaby de León, Coordinator of Interpreters and Translators at CEPIADET; Nora K. Rivera, Assistant Professor at Chapman University; Tomás López Sarabia, Chairperson of the Board at CEPIADET; Pilar Valenzuela, Professor at Chapman University; Edith Matías Juan, Project Coordinator at CEPIADET. Oaxaca, Mexico. Dec. 2023. (Photo by CEPIADET).

TNK: IEEE ProComm 2024 was fortunate to receive your research article for this year’s conference. How did you come to decide that this venue was the right fit for your work?

NR: IEEE ProComm is one of the most important publication venues for technical and professional communication scholars. It is a great place to publish works in progress. However, its international audience played a significant role in my decision to bring my work to IEEE ProComm. This is a place that welcomes multicultural and multilingual perspectives in the United States and beyond and can help amplify the work of Indigenous technical communicators.

TNK: What are the next steps related to this topic?  Or, if you have moved on to another research path, what are you looking at now?

NR: Although I have other research interests that stem from my personal background as a Transfronteriza (born and raised on the US-Mexico Borderlands) and my former professional experience as a practitioner in the tech industry (helped launch VoiceStream Wireless—T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, and Cricket Communication in El Paso, TX), I am committed to the topic of Indigenous languages and the work of Indigenous interpreters and translators. I published my first monograph this year on this topic, The Rhetorical Mediator: Understanding Agency in Indigenous Translation and Interpretation through Indigenous Approaches to UX Research (2024), which highlights an adapted design thinking methodology with Indigenous methods—a good resource for community-based user experience (UX) in practice.

Fig 2. Rivera’s work, The Rhetorical Mediator. This work can be ordered through your usual book sellers, both large and small.

I am also currently working with Dr. Pilar Valenzuela, a linguist specializing in Amazonian languages from Peru, on an edited collection of testimonios of Indigenous interpreters and translators. Dr. Pilar and I received a grant from Chapman University, which sponsored our fieldwork in December. We invited a group of seven Indigenous professionals from various parts of Mexico, Peru, and the United States to Oaxaca, Mexico. The group included speakers of Maya and Tepehuano from Mexico; Wampis, Shipibo, and Quechua from Peru; and Mixteco from Mexico and California. We are still analyzing the testimonios and hope to have the edited collection out soon.

TNK: What is the “next big thing” in sight for your future research and writing?

NR: The work I published for IEEE ProComm 2024 is still in progress. I’m committed to advancing this large project and finishing its second stage, which consists of back translations of the terms in the glossaries and a second set of interviews. So, my next step is applying for grants that can sponsor this second stage. The ultimate goal of this project is to compile the prototypes of the glossaries and their analysis in a monograph that can serve as a resource to Indigenous professionals and to anyone interested in learning how prototyping can be used as a tool for social change.

Like many scholars in our field today, I am also interested in generative AI critical literacy. My interest, however, is specific to how these technologies impact Indigenous languages and their speakers, from biases and stereotypes to invisibility due to lack of data and resources in these languages. I’m working with Chapman colleagues from writing studies, design, and human-computer interaction (HCI) to develop AI research ideas that can help address some of these issues.

In addition, I want to extend my gratitude to IEEE ProComm and to you for highlighting diverse voices because we don’t all experience professional communication the same way—a lesson I learned from growing up between two countries and from collaborating with Indigenous organizations. Thank you for giving me the opportunity and the space to talk about my work.

~Nora  Rivera

@nkrivera10 (Instagram and X)

LinkedIn: Nora K Rivera