Catalina Nieto is an interpreter and language justice consultant. She was part of a team of Spanish-English simultaneous interpretation during the Poor People's Campaign 40 days of action in Washington, DC.  

Catalina Nieto is an interpreter and language justice consultant. She was part of a team of Spanish-English simultaneous interpretation during the Poor People's Campaign 40 days of action in Washington, DC.  

Catalina Nieto

Washington, DC 

The working class in this country is multilingual.  If we’re thinking of organizing working class, it’s gonna be multilingual.  There’s no doubt about that especially in a moment where there's so much like division, you know, to be able to have moments of folks talking to each other, you know, across language, across race, across experiences.  It's so powerful, you know, like to see those connections. So yeah. I live for those moments. So that’s the reason I always try to set it up so people have that experience and then people get it. And then becomes the norm.

I mean when we're thinking of alternatives to the system we have, and language being very intimately connected to who we are.  And language also bringing a whole worldview, adding languages, only adds more imagination, more opportunities, more possibilities.  Imagine what would come if we actually also bring in languages that were here originally before colonization and the vision that that would bring into any organizing that we do?  And we're seeing right now with a lot of the children that are in jails and crossing the border. There's actually a huge need of indigenous languages right now.