Austin American-Statesman Translates Uvalde Report into Spanish; Texas Government Still Hasn’t Gotten Around to Doing So
Photo by Jordan Vonderhaar/Getty Images
Many Texans were outraged when an interim report on the mass shooting in Uvalde was released only in English, despite the local population being majority Hispanic, and all the more so when government officials said it could take up to two weeks to provide a translation into Spanish. The Austin American-Statesman has now published a complete translation of the report.
The May 24 shooting at Robb Elementary School left 19 children and two teachers dead, and the victims’ families have been frustrated about the ongoing revelations about the attack, including the unconscionable delay of more than an hour that the hundreds of heavily-armed police officers waited before engaging with the shooter.
A Texas House investigative committee released a 77-page interim report on their findings on Sunday, showing that there had been “systemic failures and egregious poor decision making,” exhibited by the chaos and a lack of a clear leadership structure by the nearly 400 officers from more than 20 law enforcement agencies who were present on the scene.
Uvalde has been more than 80 percent Hispanic for decades, and Spanish is the primary language for many of the families whose loved ones were killed or injured in the shooting. The lack of a Spanish version of the report — coupled with the apparent two weeks it would take to create one — was loudly condemned, especially considering the wide availability of Spanish-English translators in Texas.
A group of bilingual reporters and editors at the Statesman collaborated on the translation, the paper’s Ethics and Standards Executive Editor, Manny Garcia wrote on Wednesday (in an article that was, of course, also published in Spanish).
“We view this as a public service for the Uvalde families and the greater community, where most residents are Latino and many are more comfortable reading in Spanish,” wrote Garcia, noting that the translation team had taken “special care to ensure the translation was culturally competent and sensitive to word usage by Mexican and Central American communities.”
“Transparency and rigorous journalism that challenges the process are the only path to meaningful change,” Garcia added. “The Uvalde families deserve honest answers and what will be done to prevent another May 24 tragedy,” and they “deserve to receive the report’s information in Spanish, too.”
The Statesman would be printing 10,000 copies and distributing them free of charge in Uvalde, reporter Tony Plohetski tweeted.
NEW: I am so proud of @statesman, which gathered Spanish-speaking journalists to translate the Uvalde school shooting report.
The city is comprised of many Spanish-speakers who deserve answers.
Read here, and we’re printing 10,000 copies to deliver ASAP. https://t.co/4sSJSybrZb— Tony Plohetski (@tplohetski) July 20, 2022
No government agency in Texas has released a Spanish translation of the report yet or provided a firm deadline by which that might happen.
The report, as translated by the Statesman, is below and linked as a PDF here.
UPDATE: Plohetski tweeted Thursday afternoon that he and his colleagues had delivered the copies of the translated report to “public buildings, restaurants and other locations” throughout Uvalde. “If you or someone you know in Uvalde wants one, they are now available.”
My colleagues and I loaded our cars with 10,000 copies of @statesman’s Reporte Especial — a translation of the Texas House’s report — and delivered them to public buildings, restaurants and other locations.
If you or someone you know in Uvalde wants one, they are now available. https://t.co/ObSKAuYsEH pic.twitter.com/gosmisbDIt— Tony Plohetski (@tplohetski) July 21, 2022
