Injustice In Court

    In the Latino USA podcast, the episode titled “A Child Lost in Translation” describes a story where someone’s nightmare turns into reality. Originally broadcasted on May 31st, 2019, and published in Latino USA on April 29th, 2022, this episode is about Teresa Matias and her five children. Listening to this episode on May 3rd, 2022, I find out how cracked our justice system truly is. Hosts Janice Llamoca and Ashley Cleek tell the story of how a woman named M, for privacy issues, stole Matias’s child right in front of her.

A Child and Mother

    At the only Catholic Church in Huntsville, Alabama, that provides a service in Spanish is where she ends up meeting M, as the church members hear that a woman of five children might need help, so they go over and bring diapers. M then shows up on Matias’s doorstep a week later, where she then takes an interest in Matias’s youngest child. It is well known throughout the Church and community that M and J.P. cannot have children because of infertility. M and J.P., again for privacy issues, then tell Matias that they can look after the child while she is away at work. The child, only being around 1 at the time, is hard to take care of while working. So, Matias agrees. M and J.P. then tell Matias about an open adoption which means that Matias can still see her child and will have the same rights she has now, but that M and J.P. will also be taking care of him. She agrees but wants to talk to a lawyer. So, M and J.P. get a lawyer and at each of their meetings with the lawyer and Matias, only English is spoken. This is a problem, as Matias's first language is a Mayan language called Qʼanjobʼal, while her second language is Spanish. Matias is given no interpreter, the only ones interpreting what the lawyer is saying and what Matias is saying is M and J.P. It says, “Teresa says the lawyer spoke mostly to J.P., M’s husband. They spoke in English" (Latino, 18:09 - 18:13). After weeks of "talking" to the lawyer, M and J.P. tell Matias that they have one more meeting to go to. This meeting was held in court. With no interpreter given to Matias, she knows nothing of what is going on. Shaking the Judge's hand at the end, Matias leaves and it is over. M and J.P. tell her that she can't come to visit her child anymore and in a couple of months, M, J.P., and Matias's little boy are gone. What Matias thought an open adoption was, was a lie, as it merely means that the birth mother and child know each other's names. Matias's youngest child's birth certificate is now changed, and Matias has no rights to her child. What I loved about this story was the fact that the host's tried so hard to interview M and J.P. As the audience, we can tell how passionate the hosts were in telling Matias's story and the injustice she received in court for not providing her an interpreter. What I disliked about this story was the end, as Matias is still without her fifth child. She is too poor to hire a lawyer, and I wish that the hosts could have provided a way to help Matias and her family.

    The article titled “TOWARD NEW UNDERSTANDINGS OF ADOPTION: INDIVIDUALS AND RELATIONSHIPS IN TRANSRACIAL AND OPEN ADOPTION" by Mary Lyndon Shanley, goes over the history of adoption and the controversial questions that it surfaces. It analyzes questions such as should black children be adopted by black parents? Should white children be adopted by white parents? I selected this article because t dived deeper into the problem of adoption. Yes, there are plenty of great outcomes. But like all things, adoption can be used as a tool. In this article, Shanley states, “E. Wayne Carp has argued that what he calls the shift from confidentiality (records closed to all but "the parties of interest": i.e., birth parents, adoptive parents, and child) to secrecy (records inaccessible to everyone except by a court order) arose from a complex set of factors, including social workers' desire "to defend the adoptive parents, protect the privacy of unwed mothers, increase their own influence and power, and bolster social work professionalism." Adoptive parents tried to avoid the stigma of infertility and the fear that the birth parents might reappear by pushing for secrecy” (Shanley 23-24). This quote explains what has happened in the justice system for Matias. Adoptions can be secretive, not for the benefit of the child, but for the benefit of the adoptive parents.

    My theme of religion plays a part in both the episode and article. In the article, the question of “Should a Catholic child be placed only with Catholic parents and a Muslim child only with Muslim parents?” (Shanley 1) is stated as a controversial question. This question alone shows how important we believe religion is in the lives of others. In the episode, before Matias's child is taken away from her, she gets all five of her children baptized. It states, “Her children were part of the religion she grew up with. And Teresa finally had a community” (Latino, 11:15 - 11:21). Having her children connected to her by the religion that she grew up with made her happy. It again goes to show how others give importance to religion. This story of Matias and the article by Shanle both show us faults in the justice system, one more than the other.

Here it shows that the constitution states that we have the right to an interpreter in court and how the need for them is growing:

Works Cited:

Latino USA, 13 Mar. 2022, www.latinousa.org/. 

SHANLEY, MARY LYNDON. “TOWARD NEW UNDERSTANDINGS OF ADOPTION: INDIVIDUALS AND RELATIONSHIPS IN TRANSRACIAL AND OPEN ADOPTION.” Nomos, vol. 44, 2003, pp. 15–57, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24220070. Accessed 4 May 2022.