Translator speaks language of citizenship

Gilda Ramos didn't need the latest census numbers to know that Long Island has changed.

She's an immigrant from Peru who moved, freshly married, to Long Island from Germany 13 years ago.

Since then -- as a translator, a teacher of English and of Spanish and a U.S. citizenship instructor -- she's watched a parade of fellow immigrants pass by.

"I have taught people from Turkey, China, Brazil, Ecuador, you name it," said Ramos, settling into a chair at the Patchogue-Medford Library, where she's an assistant librarian.

Fifty of her students have become U.S. citizens.

Ramos -- whose first name is pronounced "jill-dah" -- uses her love of language and of Long Island to help new immigrants make their way. "I know what they are going through," she said. "I know about the loneliness, about how hard it can be."

As a child in Peru, Ramos remembers, her mother, a single parent, pushed her daughters to learn English. "You must have at least two languages to make it in this world," Ramos quoted her mother as saying.

When Ramos was a teenager, she began translating for a couple of American missionaries who would visit each year. "My mother would have me translate for them one day and my sister would have to go the next," Ramos remembered, laughing.

Ramos' love of languages eventually took her to Germany, where she spent two years perfecting her translation skills.

Her goal was to return to Peru and find a job translating, perhaps in an embassy or with the foreign service.

But life tossed a curveball.

Ramos met an American soldier and, after a stop in Peru to introduce him to family, the newly married couple moved to Medford and settled down.

Ramos was stunned at what she found. "It was like a small village to me, but I had grown up in Lima, a city of 8 million people," she said. "I remember looking around and thinking to myself, 'This is America?' "

She laughs at the memory. And at how, late at night, while her husband worked, she would sit in front of the television set armed with a notepad. "I would listen to the language," she said, laughing again, because most of what she ended up watching were infomercials.

"I wanted to know every thing, every idiom of the language, so I would write them all down," said Ramos.

To her ear, language is akin to music. And her goal in translating -- she is fluent in English, Spanish and German and has studied Italian and Portuguese -- is to, like a skilled musician, convey a speaker's words, emphasis and emotion.

Ramos and her husband had two children, but the marriage ended years ago. By then, Ramos' tie to her adopted nation pulled her to become a U.S. citizen. "I love Long Island, I love America," she said. "My family is in Peru but this is my home. My co-workers in the library have become my family."

Her roots in the community are deep and growing deeper. Joselo Lucero used to talk to Ramos whenever he stopped by the library to pick up DVDs. Ramos would later translate for Lucero's mother when she traveled to Long Island from Ecuador after the slaying of Lucero's brother, Marcelo.

She continues to teach. Twice a month, Ramos also holds meetings of Madres Latinas, a multiracial group of mothers who share cake and tea while learning about everything from how to navigate the school system to dealing with domestic violence.

This year, Ramos was named Paralibrarian of the Year by Library Journal magazine. She has translated library materials, including the Suffolk countywide catalog, into Spanish.

Among Ramos' work is a Spanish-language edition of the library's "Brief History of Patchogue," one of several communities with a growing Hispanic population.

"It was important to me that immigrants know that the community didn't just spring up," she said. "People worked hard and went through hardships to build a community here."

She said there's a lesson for new immigrants. "It's OK to come and work and work hard," Ramos said, "but it is also important to find what you love to do and to become a part of our wonderful community."