Let me warn you,
our main story tonight
...is going to end with you
getting extremely angry,
at a donkey.
That might not make sense right now, but, it is going to.
So, lets begin.
Translation
We´ve all seen the comic ways in which, it can go wrong,
at the chinese signs to say things like:
Do drunken driving or fuck vegetables.
I mean, to be fair, yes, that´s a silly sign but at the same time,
Fuck vegetables¡ am I right?
Maybe you´ve seen the youtube videos where
people put songs like Let it go into google translate,
then translate them back into english and sing the results.
I´ve got to say, that would be
an amazing tone for the Frozen sequel.
A bitter woman, wobbling about defeat,
in a radioactive ice castle. I'm in!
I am in!
Look¡
Bad translation can be a lot of fun
when the stakes are low, but, if you´re in a war zone
accurate translation can be the difference between life
an dead, and over the last decade good local interpretres
in Afganistan and Irak, have saved countless american lives.
Let me show you an afghani man named Surosh,
translating a warning about some IEDS.
He sais that, there's IEDS.
Some one told that ther's IDES, in this way.
Ok
Thank you
Do you see?, that is a good message to get exactly right.
You don´t want someone saying uh¡ to be honest my pashto
is a little shaky, but there´s either an IED or an Ikea...
...behind those rocks, some where or
so I think he said something about, fuck vegetables!
I think!
Ask any veteran...
...and they will tell you that translators...
...risk their own lives, working for us and
because they did that, they are permanent targets
for insurgents.
Here's what the translator you just saw,
Srosh,
has been up to lately.
You're probably thinking right now...
...well, we need to move heaven and
earth to get that man and his family,
and bring them to safety.
And the fact that we are not
is what this story is about, because Srosh like a shocking
number of interpreters has apply for a visa, but is stuck in burocratic
limbo, and the crazy thing is there is absolutely no good
reson for that.
Congress pasted bills in 2008 and 2009 providing thousands
of special immigrant visas for local nationals,
who worked for U.S. Military. But despite huge demand,
very few were issued.
For instance, through the Afganistan bill, we could have given out
up to 1, 500 visas a year.
Guess how many we gave out in 2011?
It was three.
The number of visas
for afghanis who risk their lives for us,
should not be so low that relatively stupid toddlers
can count up to it.
Relatively intelligent horses,
one, tow, should'nt it be more than this? Three.
Now, to be fair, things have improved slightly, recently,
thanks in part to pressure from groups like,
the List Project and IRAP,
but it is still not moving nearly fast enough.
Help us understand just how difficult it is for Afghan to work
with you as forces to get this special visas.
Is next to impossible, I would is like, literally wining the lottery.
Yeah, but, it should not be like a lottery were the odds
are terrible, this people risk their lives for us.
It should be more like a little league award ceremony,
where everyone is a winner; cause their all
an important part of the ¡Fucking team!
Now...
...there are...
There are currently thousands of interpreters
with visa applications pending and if you're wonderin,
Whose fault this is?
The state department has a surprising answer.
Jared Blanch, is a deputy special representative
for Afghanistan and Pakistan at the state department,
he blames, some of the delays, on the applicants themselfs.
A lot of those people are accually, maybe not quite have of them,
control their own timing essentially,
so they've started the application or perhaps...
...they've gotten to the first step,
but they need to finish their own paperwork, before
we can take the next step with them.
That! is some first clase victim blamin.
You are on the edge of saying,
well, look maybe the taliban
wouldn't be following them around if this translators
won't dress so slutty. Have you thought about that,
but, since he brings up the paperwork, lets just take a
look at it, because applying for special immigrant visa
is a 14 step process which is a lot.
Bear in mind that even getting off heroin, only takes 12.
Ok, so, are you ready for this shit?¡
Lets do it, because first, first you've got your DS-157 form,
this contains all your basic information it also needs to come
with a verification of employment letter from a HR Director,
as well as, a letter of recomendation
from a direct supervisor. Now,if you can't find
your former supervisor, which is entirely
possible, don't worry, you just need a
DS-158 superviser locator form, although,
that will only work if your superviser was already employed
by the miliary, if there were contracs, to which they probably were,
you're shit out of luck. You will also need to submit
a prove of nacionality form and a copy of your employe badge,
because, no one has ever lost one of those,
once you filled all of this in, you simply submit it
for approval and then wait for anything between a few
months and a few years and if you're approved
then congratulations cause you are at the petitio stage.
For this you are going to need your I-360 form
which is basically the DS-157 form all over again and remember to
bring that to your interview at the U.S. embassy, although, in
Afghanistan, funny story; they're not scheduling those
at the moment, partly because
the system is so backed up and partly because this whole
programme is set to expire at the end of the year
for no fucking reason, whatsoever.
At this stage, you as a translater, may feel a little like this.
But don't¡, don't¡
Because there is light at the end of the tunel,
well, not light so much as the DS-260 form, and
this little beauty contains such questions as:
Are you comming to the U.S. to practice polygamy?
To which, i'm guessing your answer is:
To be honest, my main plan was to not to get killed by the taliban.
I hadn't really worked out a plan of attack for my sex life yet.
But don't worry, don't worry.
Don't worry
Because, after all this paperwork plus of course a visa interview, a
medical examination, security security clearance and paying out
of pocket for passport, vaccinations and you're own plain ticket
you get to come to America or as one translator discovered,
Not!
!What the fuck¡
But now the ghost of Franz Kafka is thinking
"Don't you dare call this kafkaresk, I don't whant my
name anywhere near this shit, because, compared
to this, waking up as a cockroach is normal.
This whole process, makes no sense,
and I understand the need for security screenings,
but america has done this quicker before.
After the Vietnam War, the U.S. resettled 140.000 refugees in
just four months.
We did it perfectly at the end of the Vietnam War and
there is a sentence you don't often get to say out loud.
What we did was we took everyone to GUAM and
process them there in safety, so, why aren't we just
doing that again?
What else are we gonna do with GUAM?
It's GUAM¡
It's 200 square mills of palm trees and storage space.
It's GUAM.
And, while the U.S. govermente, might have doubts, about some
of this translators, the troops who served alongside them
certainly don't, cause you remember Serosh?
Well, the marines he served with, created a crowdfunding page
to finance his medical exams, where you can read comments
such as: "Thanks brother for helping us survive and
return to our families alive" and "Thanks for saving
our ass so many times. Time to get you state side".
And it is both, inspiring and horrifying that the life of a
man who saved americans is in the hands of the same process
through which we finance Zach Braff shitty movies.
Let me¡
Let me show you...
Let me show you just one more case, Mohammad, an
afghani translator, who started his application in
September 2010 and finally made it to America, three years
and four months later so at least he's here, there is that, but;
this was the atmosphere in which he had to do that waiting.
The people, who were trying to hurt me, first they killed my dad
and a their next step they tried to kill my brothers
they took my little brother, which I love him more than everyone
once they took him and they told me to pay almost 35000 dollards.
That's right, they kidnapped his three year old brother and
he spend hs entire life savings to get him back, and at that point
it was already two and a half years into his application process and
having gone through all that, when Mohammad finally
got his visa, a clerical error resulted in his name
been officially changed to FNU Mohammad, which is
an acronym for First Name Unknown
meaning that on official documents, to all intents and
purposes his name is now FNU and FNU is Fnot a Fnuking Fname.
I know we can do this quicker not just because of GUAM
but, because there is, at least one other documented case
of an evacuee from Irak who did get processed faster.