MINI EPISODE: Little Interpreter, Big Responsibility (with Olivia Abtahi)

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Intro – 0:00

BLAIR HODGES: What’s up everybody? Welcome to another mini-episode of Relationscapes. We’re mapping the stories and ideas that shape who we are and how we connect with each other so we can build a more just world. I’m journalist Blair Hodges joining you from Salt Lake City.

Olivia Abtahi is a writer and filmmaker born in Washington, DC to an Iranian father and an Argentine mother. She's published a few acclaimed novels about awkward teens, but her latest book is for younger readers. It's called The Interpreter. It's about a bilingual girl helping her immigrant parents navigate life in the US. It's a fun and insightful story, but I was especially curious what it's been like publishing such a book in the middle of widespread campaign of oppression against immigrant communities.

Without further ado, Olivia Abtahi joins us right now.

 

Don’t Smile at the DMV – 0:48

 

BLAIR HODGES: Olivia, welcome to Relationscapes.

OLIVIA ABTAHI: Thank you so much for having me, Blair.

BLAIR HODGES: We're talking about The Interpreter, and I read this book with my 9-year-old and asked him if he had any questions. I thought I would lead off with something from him. I was surprised because his first question was, “Why wouldn't they let Cecilia's dad smile when he was getting his picture taken at the DMV?” And I actually didn't have an answer for that. [laughs]

OLIVIA ABTAHI: Wait, I know. It's because when you're getting pulled over, they're assuming that you won't be smiling, so they want it to match the expression that you're going to be having.

BLAIR HODGES: Have you had that experience? Have you been there and, like, “Don't smile”? How did that even come to mind for you?

OLIVIA ABTAHI: Funny story. So Monica Arnaldo is the illustrator, and she also served as an interpreter for her family. She's Mexican Canadian. And on that whole page, there's like a quote, unquote, “montage” on that spread of just, little interactions. She put that in from her experience. So there's a moment where the dad is smiling or trying to smile at the DMV.

BLAIR HODGES: His smile is so funny, too. Yeah, he's got this, like, this is not a great smile.

OLIVIA ABTAHI: It looks like a scared guppy. And then there's a moment where Cecilia is—her mom is on the phone, and the mom is listening on the phone. And it says, “For Spanish, press three,” but it's in English, so Cecilia is translating, “press three.” So that was another moment Monica put in. And I thought those were just brilliant.

BLAIR HODGES: “Marque cinco” is what I usually hear. Like, they always put it at Cinco for some reason. Okay, so I mean, I looked at my driver's license and I'm kind of smiling. My wife suggested that you can't show teeth. She said she was at the DMV and they were like, “We can't see your teeth.” Maybe that was another way of saying don't smile.

OLIVIA ABTAHI: I guess maybe. That's so random. [laughter]

 

Growing Up Multilingual – 2:33

 

BLAIR HODGES: Okay. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there's an estimated 11 million kids in the United States who are acting as interpreters or translators for their parents. And I wondered if you were one of those children growing up.

OLIVIA ABTAHI: Yeah, my dad is from Iran and my mom is from Argentina, and they met in Spain. My mom was working for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees during the Vietnamese boat people crisis.

BLAIR HODGES: Oh, wow.

OLIVIA ABTAHI: Yeah. Her department won the Nobel Peace Prize in the 80s. And one of her clients was my dad. So they both learned English in schools within their home countries, so more of an Anglicized English. And in Spain, my dad learned Spanish. And so they kind of speak English and Spanish together. So growing up, for me, they knew English well, they could speak English fluently. But there were still cultural things that I had to explain, American things that I had to explain from their English school upbringing.

There were definitely moments where I was interpreting more cultural things. Like my dad would offer, you know, another parent a cup of tea, and the parent would say, oh, no, no, I gotta go, I'm good. And my dad would be like, what just happened? Like, I offered someone tea.

BLAIR HODGES: So did they say stuff like “put it in the boot” instead of trunk and stuff like that?

OLIVIA ABTAHI: You know, sometimes my mom, even today when she's like saying the word like figure, like, oh, you have a nice figure. She'll say, oh, they have a nice figure. Like, just weird English moments. And my dad, you know, Persian has a lot of French in it as well. So he would say, a mini skirt is a mini jupe. There's just like random things.

And you know, he grew up in northern Iran, which was kind of not officially colonized by Russia, but there was a big presence there, so he grew up with Russian as well. It was just a mishmash of languages in our household.

BLAIR HODGES: Oh, yeah. I also wonder now what you're going to do to earn a Nobel Prize Prize, because, I mean, you have to sort of surpass the parent. So what are you going to do?

OLIVIA ABTAHI: Well, that's kind of the nice thing is that I will never be as cool as my mom and dad. I know some people think that being a traditionally published author is a big deal, but like, my parents truly do not care. So it's very, it's very freeing. I said, yo, I was on NPR the other day and my dad was like, cool. So anyway.

But you know, I think that's honestly with a lot of first gen kids too. It's like your parents have survived the hardest passage to get to this country. Anything you do will just like never be as impressive to them.

BLAIR HODGES: When you're at the DMV and telling them not to smile, you get to be in charge, hey, you get to kind of have some authority in that situation. “Don't smile, dad.” [laughs]

OLIVIA ABTAHI: Exactly. Yeah, I finally am the authority now.

 

Becoming a Picture Book Author – 5:29

 

BLAIR HODGES: Now, you've written some other books for older kids, but this is the first time you've written for a younger audience. So I wondered about that transition for you, how you made that decision and how difficult it was.

OLIVIA ABTAHI: Writing picture books is the hardest category of books to write in, hands down. And every author worth their salt will agree, because with a typical, you know, 40 to 140,000 word book, you have a ton of runway to get your point across. And Blair, as you know as a dad, with a picture book, you are up against the hardiest audience, which is a kid.

And you only have about 500 words of runway. So every single word counts. Every single word is so precious. Doing edits on a picture book is where—oh, can you hear my kiddos?

BLAIR HODGES: Barely. And I think that would even filter out with my fancy filtering.

OLIVIA ABTAHI: Okay.

BLAIR HODGES: If it doesn't, it's kind of cool if people are hearing this right now. They just know, this is life.

OLIVIA ABTAHI: This is life. That's my screaming child. Yeah. With the picture book, it's just. It's so much harder. And there's a lot more thinking than writing, I will say.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah. I just talked to Kyle Lukoff, who's another author, and he wrote Call Me Max, which is great. And now he's writing, like, middle grade novels. And he said the same thing. He said how, for the same reasons, every single word counts. And so when he made the transition, it was really hard to get out of the mindset of every single sentence has to be perfect and do this thing, because that's what he was used to doing in these picture books.

So that made the transition tough for him. You kind of went the other direction of starting out with these books for older kids and going back to the picture books.

OLIVIA ABTAHI: Yeah. First of all, I love Kyle. He's incredible.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

OLIVIA ABTAHI: And for me, what I ended up having to do with this picture book is I had to write it as a screenplay because there's so much dialogue, there's so much the narration. I treat it as like a voiceover. And then what's happening on the page is different.

BLAIR HODGES: Oh, that makes sense.

OLIVIA ABTAHI: Yeah. And then there's a moment which is like more of a screenplay thing where you have the voiceover, which is outside of the diegesis of the “film” of the story. But at the end, Cecilia wrests control from the voiceover. So you have kind of non-diegetic voiceover into diegetic. Right now, it's within the story.

Kind of like a good example is when you hear a song in a movie just in the soundtrack, and then it goes into the car stereo of the characters.

BLAIR HODGES: Exactly.

OLIVIA ABTAHI: So it goes from outside of the story of this omniscient presence into the, like, kind of protagonist's world. So I had to play around a lot with that. And even. Yeah, it was so hard. It was just so hard.

BLAIR HODGES: And did you get to talk about diegetic stuff on NPR or did they tell you they're like—well, maybe NPR would be okay with the deep level of nerdiness on that?

OLIVIA ABTAHI: Such an NPR topic.

 

Working With a Great Illustrator – 8:28

 

BLAIR HODGES: [laughs] Okay, so as I was reading with my son, I was kind of worried about how he would feel because his older sibling speaks Spanish. And it's kind of a point of contention between them. I think there's a little jealousy because he didn't get to be in that program. So he's not learning Spanish. My older one is.

So whenever he hears Spanish, it can be a bit triggering for him—like, “That’s something my sibling gets to do, and I don’t.” I approached the book with a little hesitation, thinking he might feel some jealousy. But he immediately locked into the story. There’s a lot of Spanish in the book, but it’s integrated so intentionally—it’s all about showing Cecilia, the main character, translating for her family. Because of that, he stayed engaged the whole time. I was curious how it would go, and it really worked for him. He really liked it.

I think the art kind of helped with that, too. The illustrations are so rich and beautiful. Were they digitally done or is this by hand stuff?

OLIVIA ABTAHI: Yeah. Monica starts by hand—she uses colored pencils and watercolor—and then I believe she moves into Procreate on the iPad to finish the illustrations.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, so she can kind of clean it up digitally.

OLIVIA ABTAHI: Exactly. She’s so talented. We were really lucky to nab her.

BLAIR HODGES: This is Monica Arnaldo. How did you first learn about her work?

OLIVIA ABTAHI: Kokila, my publisher, recommended her. But I already knew her because my daughter was obsessed with her picture book Are You a Cheeseburger? It’s about a raccoon who hopes a seed he plants will grow into a cheeseburger plant. Monica is hilarious and has such a sharp visual sense. I’m not surprised your son connected with the book—she really understands where a child’s eye goes and how to hold their attention.

 

Kids with Grown-Up Responsibilities – 10:18

 

BLAIR HODGES: Do you have a favorite illustration from the book—one that made you say, “Oh my goodness, this is amazing”?

OLIVIA ABTAHI: Yes, absolutely. There’s a moment where Cecilia meets another child interpreter, a boy who’s translating from English to Persian for his family. His mom asks, “How old is that baby?” and the boy translates from Persian to English. Cecilia then translates from English to Spanish, and the conversation goes full circle. It felt like a perfect representation of my own life—this constant game of telephone. I hadn’t even included that moment in the original text, but Monica imagined and drew it anyway. It meant so much to me. I’ve even blown up that spread and framed it. It’s really close to my heart.

BLAIR HODGES: The book opens by saying, “Some kids have one job—to be a kid. Cecilia worked two.” And we see Cecilia at a grown-up desk, wearing an oversized suit, pouring coffee, and reviewing documents—clearly stepping into an adult role. Was that your concept from the beginning?

OLIVIA ABTAHI: Yes. That office scene is mirrored later by her kitchen—the furniture placement is exactly the same. Cecilia is almost dissociating. The desk becomes the kitchen table. The water cooler becomes the fridge. Even the coffee mug has the Argentinian flag on it, a small nod to my background. I’m Argentinian, and we drink mate, but since we went with Mexican Spanish in the book to be more familiar to readers in North America, we kept coffee in the scene instead. But the idea of the ill-fitting suit, of her trying to wear something that doesn’t quite belong to her—that was Monica’s brilliant addition. I had written her in a suit, but Monica made it oversized, which really captured the emotional mismatch perfectly.

BLAIR HODGES: Do you think different things might stand out for younger readers versus adult readers as they go through this book?

OLIVIA ABTAHI: Yes, absolutely. For adult readers, this book is meant to open up the conversation. We published both the English version, The Interpreter, and the Spanish version, La Intérprete, simultaneously. I wanted this book to be a way for parents to start talking about this unspoken experience that so many families in this country go through.

For kids, having a child with agency navigating the adult world—whether it’s at the ER or the DMV, like we talked about—I think that really resonates. Kids especially grasp moments like when Cecilia’s soccer friends want to play with her, but she’s busy. My own kids always pick up on that, saying, “Oh, but she wants to play soccer!” But she has to clock into her job, holding the briefcase, and you hear the intercom. It’s funny how different kids and adults pick up on different things.

BLAIR HODGES: What do you think adults should keep in mind when interacting with someone whose child is interpreting for them? I haven’t been in that situation much—just a few times—but what are some considerations adults can make when speaking with parents through a child interpreter?

OLIVIA ABTAHI: I think just talking about it is the first step. It’s such an unspoken rule of filial piety for first-generation kids—like, “My parents sacrificed everything to bring me here, of course I can translate a McDonald’s order or go with them to the drive-thru.” But those little things add up.

I believe starting the conversation by saying, “Hey, this is work. This is a paid job for adults,” is important. Just acknowledging that it’s happening is huge. Ultimately, the book is about teaching children how to ask for help, but for families, I really wanted to start this conversation because it’s such an unspoken, assumed thing.

I know people my age who are still translating for their parents while having children of their own. It’s not their parents’ fault—it’s difficult—but concessions have to be made. When you bring it into the light, you can schedule it, set limits and healthy boundaries, and ask others for help.

If it stays in the shadows—this murky, shameful thing, like having to go with your mom to the hairdresser—it’s hard to find balance.

BLAIR HODGES: How about logistically, like in the moment? You’ve done this, so should I be looking at the kid, then the parents? How does this work? For example, when I speak to deaf people with a paid interpreter, I try to avoid looking at the interpreter and focus on the person I’m talking to. But with kids, it might be different—they might need to feel engaged. I’m thinking about how to negotiate that.

OLIVIA ABTAHI: Yeah, it really depends on the situation. When I speak with deaf or hard of hearing people, it’s usually an adult with an interpreter, so I speak directly to the adult. But with a child interpreter, since I usually speak the language and can talk directly to the parent, I haven’t done it that way.

I think you’ll want to bounce between both—to make the child feel engaged and to let the parent know you’re listening to their concerns.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

OLIVIA ABTAHI: I’m lucky to know many medical providers and educators who say, “This is my reality all the time.” We could get a paid interpreter, but it has to be requested two days in advance, so it’s not feasible every time.

Usually, it’s about bouncing between them. Like at a parent-teacher conference, the child might sit in a little chair at the little table and be part of the conversation.

BLAIR HODGES: That's best for a kid too, by the way. That's the best opportunity. Oh, Cecilia is so great in class. No problems.

OLIVIA ABTAHI: Totally. Just say, yep, she’s got straight A’s. She’s wonderful.

 

Helping Kids Deal with Burnout – 19:26

 

BLAIR HODGES: So we mentioned Cecilia was kind of burning out. Her parents start to see it, and they come up with a solution. Her older siblings—who had moved away—come into town and can kind of bear some of the load for her. Not all families have that option. What other kinds of options do you see families using to help their kids when they might feel overwhelmed or a little burned out like Cecilia?

OLIVIA ABTAHI: I mean, unfortunately, I don’t really see families working in this way to help with the burnout. Once again, families don’t talk about it. It’s just so under the radar. But in the book, Cecilia gets her older brother and her aunt to help. I think just scheduling and having blocks of time really helps, because then you’re in “work mode,” quote unquote, or “interpreting mode.” It’s when you’re constantly being torn in different directions that it becomes really taxing.

So just having moments where it’s like, all right, this afternoon we’re doing the DMV, we’re going through the voicemails, we’re just knocking it out—that helps. And once again, I don’t want to put all the pressure on parents. I do think we’re lucky in the United States to have free English lessons. I wish some of these older adults—I know they’re exhausted, I know many families work two or three jobs—but just having Duolingo on your phone is huge. Renting free Pimsleur audiobooks from the library is another.

These are small things to show your kid that this isn’t going to be forever. I don’t mean to say parents have to fully assimilate, but to show where their kid is coming from. My grandma moved here from Iran in her late 50s and passed away in her mid-80s. She was still not comfortable with English. I think some parents do need to make an effort, too, to show their kids this isn’t forever—we’re trying as well.

BLAIR HODGES: It sounds like a big primary or hopeful audience for this book is the parents who have their children interpreting. You’re hoping they can get more into the shoes of their kids, see some of that mental load. So it’s not just for the kids who are interpreting, or for people like me who might interact with kids interpreting, but really for the parents. It sounds like you really hope they get something out of the book.

OLIVIA ABTAHI: Absolutely. When I was shopping this book around, I told publishers it had to be published in two languages—English and Spanish—simultaneously. That’s the whole point of this book. Once again, I cannot emphasize this enough: we don’t talk about this. You do not talk about the fact that you’re relying on your five-year-old to do your taxes. I just wanted to bring it to light.

The people who need this book most will need it primarily in Spanish. I feel for these families—when they go into a bookstore, they’re probably already writing off half the stock. I want to make sure they have options, too, because this community is so undervalued just because they don’t speak English. I wanted to show, hey, you guys deserve tools for your toolbox as well.

BLAIR HODGES: We're talking with Olivia Abtahi about The Interpreter, a picture book about a young soccer-loving girl who also serves as an interpreter for her Spanish-speaking parents. She’s also written other award-winning novels like Perfectly Parveen, Azer on Fire, and Twin Flames. She joins us today from Denver, Colorado, where she lives with her husband and two kids.

 

Publishing a Book in the Orange Era – 23:13

 

BLAIR HODGES: So you probably started working on this book during a tumultuous time. I don’t know how long the process took, but part of it was during the presidential election season when racism was playing a central role. I wondered what your thinking was as you watched that unfold and how it might have impacted how you put the book together.

OLIVIA ABTAHI: Yeah, that was a big part of it. I think you just feel so hopeless sometimes. For me, writing this book was cathartic. I wanted to write a book for these kids who are interpreters in their families. But when I started writing, it was so insipid and filled with messages and lessons. It was my first picture book—I didn’t know what I was doing.

At the time, I happened to watch a couple movies. I feel like being an author is like trying to grow an almond—you need so much water just for one kernel. I need to consume a lot of content, read books, or go on walks.

I had just watched a TV show called Severance, and movies like Everything Everywhere All at Once—

BLAIR HODGES: (Showing Olivia a finger trap) I’m showing Olivia my finger trap here at my desk for all my Severance fan listeners.

OLIVIA ABTAHI: Yes! And also a movie called CODA—children of deaf adults. In all those scenes, something in the visuals inspired me. That’s when I thought, what if I wrote this as a screenplay? Sometimes switching from Microsoft Word to Google Docs to pen and paper helps the creative process.

So while all the news was happening—executive orders, the Muslim ban was in effect—Perfectly Parveen, a big part of that book, is based on the Muslim ban. My mom is an immigration attorney, and every time a new executive order goes through, her law office is flooded with people trying to figure out their status, next steps, legal pathways to citizenship.

So yeah, I wrote it from a place of both hope and despair. We really needed that in our lives.

BLAIR HODGES: I think that’s a good choice. I face a similar thing with my podcast—there’s so much happening that every episode could get pulled into a discussion about some policy or group being harmed. I want to address those things, but I also want the show to be bigger than that and have a longer shelf life. I didn’t get the sense you were trying to push a heavy political message in the book; it felt like you just wanted the story to tell itself, without slogans. But I also thought about how hard it must be to put this out while the world feels like it’s on fire.

OLIVIA ABTAHI: Totally. And for Perfectly Parveen, she’s dealing with the Muslim ban and a really anti-Muslim environment, but she’s also like, “Who’s going to be my date to homecoming?” Kids are dealing with heavy stuff, but they also have everyday worries.

I grew up in D.C. during the sniper attacks. We had to practice marching band indoors—like, this is awful, but also surreal. We weren’t thinking, “Hey, there’s a guy in a Dodge Capri trying to kill us.”

BLAIR HODGES: Kill random people.

OLIVIA ABTAHI: Yes. So with this administration, kids aren’t screaming, “Help, I’m being oppressed.” They’re more like, “Okay, how do I deal with this? What does my day-to-day look like?” For better or worse, it’s tough to focus on the big picture when your daily life is upended.

So I get wanting to address the political climate, but with kids, it filters down differently.

BLAIR HODGES: Do you expect any pushback or criticism for writing a story celebrating bilingualism? Or do you think you won’t have to worry about that too much? A lot of the book bans we’re seeing are targeting LGBTQ books, which this one doesn’t deal with.

OLIVIA ABTAHI: I don’t expect much. Ask Marco Rubio—is this offensive? For better or worse, there are lots of Spanish speakers in the current administration. This country doesn’t have an official language; English isn’t official.

I live in Colorado, which was formerly part of Mexico. So at this point, I’m like, come at me, bro. What do you want me to do? I had to learn the control-alt code for accents! If they want to come for this book—

Well, I saw Julianne Moore’s book banned yesterday. It’s about a girl with freckles, and I’m like, okay, of all the European groups to ban a book about freckles, really?

BLAIR HODGES: As a redhead, I’m a little worried now.

OLIVIA ABTAHI: Yeah, it might interest your demographic! But okay, if they ban it, whatever. Good publicity.

BLAIR HODGES: Maybe more people will hear about it.

OLIVIA ABTAHI: The advance for this book was paid for by the anti-racist baby book controversy. So if Ted Cruz wants to come after this one too, great—I hope the sales pay for another Kyle Lukoff picture book.

 

Regrets, Challenges, & Surprises – 28:59

 

BLAIR HODGES: Exactly. Well, let’s close with regrets, challenges, and surprises. I like to ask authors about the process. Is there anything you would change now that the book is out? What was the hardest part or biggest challenge? Or what surprised you while putting the book together? You don’t have to answer all three—just whichever you want.

OLIVIA ABTAHI: Something that surprised me was working with an illustrator for the first time. For my previous books, you just send the manuscript, someone puts a cover on, and you don’t really interact with the artist.

What surprised me was how thoughtful the illustrator was. Monica added a bunch of text I didn’t write, and I really enjoyed how collaborative that was.

So as I write more picture books, I want to make sure I check in with the illustrator at some point—like, “Is there text you want to add? I’m not precious about this. It’ll be stronger with both of us contributing.” I was making illustration notes all over the manuscript and hoped Monica would feel comfortable adding words, too, because it’s both of our books.

That’s something I definitely want to do next time—not because I failed, but because I didn’t know that was an option. I want it to be really collaborative because illustrators come up with ideas I never could.

BLAIR HODGES: My favorite illustration is the opening one showing her suit and shoes side by side. Then at the end, you see her soccer uniform and cleats side by side—a perfect bookend to her two uniforms. It encapsulates the book so well. The illustrations are beautiful; I really loved that.

OLIVIA ABTAHI: Did you notice whose jersey that is, Blair?

BLAIR HODGES: No—I’m not a soccer person, sorry.

OLIVIA ABTAHI: I made sure it was the best soccer player in the world—Messi, Lionel Messi.

BLAIR HODGES: Oh, Messi. I know that name. I think I’m supposed to know Messi and Beckham, right?

OLIVIA ABTAHI: Yes! Because we did this in Mexican Spanish, I still needed my Argentinian touches. That uniform, the number 10.

BLAIR HODGES: I actually see those around my kids’ school, so I should’ve known.

OLIVIA ABTAHI: Absolutely.

BLAIR HODGES: Well, Olivia, thanks for talking to us about The Interpreter. It’s a terrific book. I really enjoyed reading it and talking to you about it.

OLIVIA ABTAHI: Thank you so much, Blair. Such a pleasure to talk to you.

 

Outro – 31:32

 

BLAIR HODGES: Thanks for listening to another episode of Relationscapes, where we’re mapping the stories and ideas that shape who we are and how we connect with each other so we can build a better world. If you enjoyed the theme of this mini-episode, check out other episodes like “Unearthing Family Secrets,” with Ingrid Rojas Contreras, and “Border Separations,” with Efrén Olivares.

Mates of State provided our theme song. Relationscapes is part of the Dialogue Podcast Network. I’m journalist Blair Hodges in Salt Lake City, and let’s hang out again soon.