The Service Translation group began translating a 64+ page document from English to Japanese, provided by our community partner, Go For Broke National Education Center, in order for Japanese people, or those who can only read Japanese, to learn more about Japanese Americans who served in the US military during WWII while many of their families were unfairly incarcerated, as well as the lives of Japanese-Americans during WWII. The document is of interviews with Japanese Americans who served in the US military during WWII from English to Japanese. Each member received a small part of the document to translate. When half of the members were finished with their translation, we began compiling them into one document. Once everyone finished translating their allocated portion and the compiled document was finished, we requested a Middlebury College professor, Professor Hayasaka, to examine the text for Japanese grammatical mistakes and translation faults (misuse of a Japanese term, for example). Middlebury College students then added the professor’s suggestions to the paper once Professor Hayasaka finished reviewing the document. However, Kayla Moore, the project manager at the time, formatted it to appear like the original and double-checked it for any remaining errors, and Ayui Ota, President of the ICU Time Travelers, supplied translation footnotes for Japanese readers before sending the completed document to our community partner.
The following is the result of our members’ tireless efforts over the past two years.
