Dydy’r heddwas yn Florida ddim mor unigol ag o’n i’n meddwl, mae’n debyg. Mae’r un peth yn digwydd yng Nghaliffornia:

One Sunday earlier this year, Irma Luna, a Mixteca who works with Ventura in the CRLA’s Fresno office, was called to the hospital to interpret for a homeless Mixteca who had just given birth.

Hospital officials, thinking she spoke Spanish, asked if she wanted to give her newborn son up for adoption and thought she had agreed. But a social worker who interviewed the young woman realized she didn’t understand Spanish and called Luna to translate. When Luna asked her in Mixtec, she replied, horrified: "Are you crazy? Give him up for what?"

Ventura himself nearly spent life in prison because of a tragic miscommunication: In 1986, Ventura, then a 17-year-old strawberry picker in Oregon, was convicted of killing another farm worker.

He and six other farm workers were questioned after a stabbing, which took place at a party. When he was interviewed by the only Spanish-speaking police officer in the county, he did not make eye contact — Mixtecs think it’s rude to look people directly in the eye — and the officer concluded he was guilty.
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