tilde Language Justice Cooperative
tilde Language Justice Cooperative is a majority Latine-owned language service provider offering translations, interpretation, and capacity building to further language justice for our communities and movements. We create multilingual spaces that foster linguistic democracy: universal potential for building community by breaking down language barriers to participation and leadership. We are part of the struggle toward a community in which we can all fully participate and communicate in the languages that make us who we are, in which we are more authentically ourselves.
LEARN MOREOur Vision
tilde envisions a multilingual world in which all languages are respected, language work is valued, and all people can fully participate in movements for social justice and collective liberation.
Our Mission
tilde is a cooperative that creates a sustainable livelihood for language workers, and advances language justice by providing high-quality interpreting, translation, training, and consulting in the North Carolina Triangle region and beyond.
Our Values
tilde’s values serve as the foundation for our organization, they are the core beliefs that inform our principles. tilde believes in Empathy, Self-Determination, Transparency, Inclusion, Integrity, and Courage.
We Support & Promote Language Justice
Language justice is a recognition that language is power. When we are able to express ourselves in the language(s) that help make us who we are, we are using the power of language to its full potential. Language justice practice is always evolving- it is a perspective that gathers together many legacies, and a growing set of practices to ensure that people can lead, communicate and participate fully in their communities, regardless of the languages or linguistic variants they use.
Language justice helps us build and sustain multilingual spaces where people can be heard, understand and be understood in their own language(s). It rejects the notion of one language having supremacy over any other, recognizing how language exclusion has and is still used as a tool of oppression. Implementing language justice throughout our social justice organizations and movements helps us build a diverse and just society in which we all support collective liberation.
What does all this mean for tilde?
-In our U.S. context, we want to help decenter white, mainstream English and build solidarity within and beyond language barriers.
-We must fight language injustice/linguicism for our ppl to survive and thrive.
-Language Justice is not just a Spanish<>English thing; Language Justice and Language Access go hand-in-hand.
-To transform language culture and practice takes time, courage, humility, and commitment.
-Everyone can and should play a part in driving Language Justice, and not just those who are multilingual or who code-switch to survive/thrive.
