Certified medical interpreter Marlene Velasquez, right, helps Olivia Romero with the language barrier at Gordon Hospital in Calhoun as registered nurse Jennifer Peel dispenses medication to aid Romero's labor with her third child, a boy.

Olivia Romero caresses her newborn and quietly gushes praise - no, more like thankful prayers - for the woman she calls her "angel de la guarda," her guardian angel.

"I am very thankful to her for having been there with me," she said, reflecting on the May 12 delivery of little Jesus Leonardo Romero. "If it wasn't for her, who knows what would have happened."

Olivia is talking about Marlene Velasquez, an interpreter who works almost exclusively with pregnant women in Calhoun.

She is a two-time client of Velasquez, and Jesus is among the most recent of 600 to 700 babies whom Velasquez, 35, helped bring into the world with her words.

"I have always liked helping people," said Velasquez, who is U.S.-born of Costa Rican parents and grew up bicultural. "I wouldn't want to be in another country and not know the language and, because of that, not get the things I need. I put myself in their position, and I wouldn't want it to happen to me."

Ninety percent of Velasquez's clients are migrant workers, most from Mexico and practically all undocumented. Their knowledge of English is scanty and their understanding of the U.S. health care system practically nonexistent. They come to work in the chicken farms and carpet mills that ring this small town, and they are changing its character.

Velasquez has been interpreting for 13 years but got medical certification only three years ago. A handful of interpreters in Calhoun do what she does, but they aren't near meeting the need.

"This town is growing a lot," Velasquez said. "There are no bilingual workers anywhere. Translators and interpreters are very much needed."

Making it in America
Romero and husband Leonardo, on their way to legal residency thanks to family members, have lived together in Calhoun nearly eight years. They come from Morelia, in Mexico's Michoacan state. Like many of their countrymen - and women - they endured harsh desert crossings, expensive smugglers and long months in apartments crowded with strangers just to get a job that supports them and yields a little money for families back home.

He works for a small construction contractor. She tends to their three children - one born in Mexico, the other two in the United States. And when the time came for visiting doctors and filling out forms for those pregnancies, Romero got an interpreter, though her husband knew a little English.

"Sometimes, a person might go to the doctor for a follow-up visit and the doctor tells them, 'You didn't understand me,' " Olivia Romero said. "I have a friend that went to the doctor and she understood English very well, but the doctor later told her, 'You didn't understand me.' "

Velasquez's clients become longtime friends and acquaintances. After pregnancies, they come to her to help with pediatrician visits, then for school enrollment and teacher conferences. The word gets around with sisters, inlaws and friends.

"Each birth is something incredible for me," Velasquez said. "It's beautiful because I am with them the entire nine months."

Romero and other clients say Velasquez interprets the doctor's exact words. But she often goes beyond to explain the process to young mothers.

And some pregnancies have been mirrors of Velasquez's own. Several years ago, her first pregnancy turned high-risk, and her baby died before she left the hospital. Later, she helped client Angela Pegueros through a similar ordeal.

"I could see that she was upset at having to give me all this bad news," said Pegueros, whose baby died 16 hours after a trouble-free pregnancy and an easy birth. "When she saw that the baby was going to die ... she stayed with me to fill out the papers, then she took me home and remained with me ... She arranged everything for the funeral."

Velasquez, who started her career at a local health clinic, doesn't charge a set fee for her services. Clients pay what they can, and she does much of her work for free. For a long time, she could afford that because her husband supported the family.

Work may have to halt
But now that Velasquez has divorced, she has had to move in with her mother and is looking at possibly quitting her interpreting work in favor of a job that supports her and her children.

Velasquez also knows there are some who condemn what she does because they see it as encouraging migrants to have more children, which stresses an already overworked welfare system.

But she says her clients need her help. "We all have a right to medical care, no matter what the race, no matter what the language," she said. "They deserve the same treatment [as nativeborn Americans]. Who are we to judge?"

- This article is a reprint from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.