A Child Lost in Translation

A Child Lost in Translation

WBEZ brings you fact-based news and information. Sign up for our newsletters to stay up to date on the stories that matter.
Huntsville, Alabama has a small, but growing Latino population. It’s where Teresa Matias, a single working immigrant mother from Guatemala, lived with five sons. In 2015, Teresa joined a local Catholic church and baptized her sons, and found them godparents. The godparents of her youngest song, would take a special liking to him. Over the next year, a series of events would begin to unravel—in which the godparents got lawyers and judges involved—eventually resulting in Teresa giving up complete parental rights to her youngest son. But in all these meetings, Teresa, who knows only a few words in English and grew up speaking a Mayan language, never had a proper interpreter. Latino USA chronicles Teresa’s story and how she ended up making a life-changing decision without full consent and proper translation.