Bridging the language gap

Laguna woman serves as translator for hurricane victims, President Clinton.One local woman saw -- and heard -- firsthand the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina.

Teresa Guilian is a Red Cross volunteer from Laguna Beach who met and interpreted for former president Bill Clinton during his trip to Baton Rouge to talk to hurricane victims.

A former Spanish teacher at Newport Harbor High School, Guilian also interpreted for the Spanish-speaking victims of a 2003 apartment fire in Santa Ana. She was in Baton Rouge already as the resident Red Cross translator when Clinton spoke with a group of about 16 hurricane victims on Oct. 4.

Alejandrina Perez, 45, wasn’t sure of her English and requested Guilian’s assistance.

“Because of the mood of the room, you could hear a pin drop, and I didn’t want to interrupt any of the stories,” Guilian said. “I would write in Spanish, look up at her for a nod of understanding, and then I’d go back to translating.”

Perez, a native of Nicaragua, has lived in the U.S. for 10 years.

Guilian said the conference started off “somber and very sad.” She added that Clinton was very good at listening to the participants’ problems.

“[Clinton and the elder George Bush] had started a campaign to raise money for the evacuees, and he wanted to know how to spend the money,” Guilian explained.

“He was able to lift their spirits, but he was really there to listen. He was a listener.

“There was a woman who was mad at the media for saying that there was no dead baby in the stadium,” Guilian said, “because there was a dead baby and it was in the toilet and she saw it. She cried and screamed and said, ‘Don’t tell me what I did not see. I saw a dead baby in the toilet and I will never forget that image for the rest of my life.’”

Though each of the participants had horror stories, when Clinton asked if anyone would like to go back to living in New Orleans, everyone raised their hands. They said it was their home.

Guilian received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Spanish from the University of Delaware. She is now the instructional technology coordinator at Fairmont Private School.

Perez lives with her husband and their granddaughter, Victoria.