As the doctor explained in precise detail how her father’s surgery would go, Kyunghee Kim could feel her father’s eyes watching her, glossy and searching for answers — answers only she could provide.

Between meetings with the doctor, Kim would frantically look up the medical terms he mentioned and figure out their translations in Korean, desperate to put her father at ease. 

She would hold her father’s hand as she translated the doctor’s words, inserting loving phrases such as “The doctor said everything will be okay” and “The University of Michigan Hospital has one of the best doctors in our country.” 

But it didn’t matter what the doctor said or how excellent the hospital and its staff were. Whenever they were in that cold, sterile room, Kim saw a version of her father she had rarely seen before, and it scared her. 

“I could see the worry in his face, and that was a very vulnerable emotion to see from him,” Kim said. “He never directly said, ‘I’m scared’ or ‘Am I going to die?’ but I saw it in his body language, and I’d never witnessed that before.”

In late March of 2021, Kyunghee’s father was diagnosed with colon cancer. He had been suffering from stomach pains and fatigue for a while but never reached out to Kim for help in seeking medical advice or figuring out what was going on.

It was only when he received a voice message from the doctor telling him to call back as soon as possible that he realized he could not avoid asking his daughter for help.

In those moments at the hospital, Kim’s job as a family translator transcended words. What she said could either weigh her father down or lift him up, even for a moment.

Sitting in the cancer center, enclosed within white walls and linoleum floors, all Kim wanted was to offer her appa the warmth of his family, to let him know, “I am here.”

While people often see her as just a translator for her parents, Kyunghee Kim prefers to see herself as their greatest advocate, as someone who could use her English to be their voice.

In 1988, Kim’s parents immigrated to the U.S. from South Korea, crossing a nearly 6,500-mile-long stretch of water with hopes of finding a better future for Kim and her sister on the other end.

Kim was 8 years old when she had to face this difficult transition and — like many immigrants — prepare to navigate a new home, a new language, new people, and the culture of America. 

“I didn’t immediately know the challenges that my parents would face,” Kim said. “When you are only 8 years old, you don’t realize how your parents are struggling because they do a very good job of keeping it to themselves and doing what they can to support the family.”

Her parents had to make a living immediately, so they found jobs at a factory shortly after the move. Later, they managed to start their own dry cleaning business as well. 

Each night, after many hours spent working, her parents would come home and take the time to watch movies and read books in English, trying to understand the grammar, pick up the American slang, and learn whatever else they could about the language.

While their English was far from fluent, what they learned on their own was just enough to get by in their jobs. 

Meanwhile, after attending one school year in the U.S. in a full immersion program, Kim and her sister were speaking and understanding English as if it were their native tongue. Soon enough, Kim would receive a role she didn’t choose for herself — she would become her parents’ voice in navigating their new home.

During her childhood, Kim often felt she was more of a caretaker than a child. 

Many other child translators — also known as child language brokers — share Kim’s feelings. Child language brokering, the practice where children interpret and mediate communication for their family members, is common in immigrant families worldwide, especially in educational, healthcare, and community settings. 

According to the Nuffield Foundation, between 70% to 90% of children from immigrant backgrounds in the U.S. and U.K. engage in child language brokering, with Latino, Asian, and Eastern European children being the most frequent brokers due to higher bilingual fluency among these populations.

When 8 year old Kim started translating for her parents, she quickly felt a level of responsibility for their well-being, and she tried her best to help them as much as she could. 

Whether it was teaching them how to use the Internet or translating countless paperwork from school, helping her parents with daily tasks became a defining image of Kim’s childhood. 

As years and decades passed, Kim slowly recognized that a role reversal had occurred in her home. 

“Of course, my parents still had more power in the household than my sister and I,” Kim said. “But the fact was I had to lead them through so many parts of their day every day. It was during those moments that I sometimes felt more like a caretaker than a child.”

This “role reversal” is a common occurrence among child language brokers, according to the Journal of Family Issues. However, many child translators experience higher levels of stress, anxiety, and symptoms of depression as they navigate complex, often high-stakes communication.

“When child translators start to take on greater responsibilities within a family, this shift is often referred to as adultification or parentification,” said Majorie Elaine, Ph.D., a professor of Urban Schooling at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Sometimes, kids would share that it became tiring, especially when they have more competing demands on them.”

While Kim would do anything to help her parents, she notes that language brokering can be a burden.

“Naturally, anything can become a burden if you didn’t volunteer for it,” Kim said. “On top of that, when translating in a way that’s caring for a person — in this case, my dad — I didn’t know how much emotion would go into it, because, as his daughter, there’s no way to translate without emotion.”

However, many language brokers feel positive about their experiences of translating for their parents, as it allows them to learn and improve skills such as empathy, decision-making, and emotional processing, according to the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.

“While there are some situations in which the parents feel infantilized, that’s not what I found. For the most part, the adults were in charge, but they were looking for the kids’ support,” Elaine said. “I did some studies that followed people over a long period of time, and as they looked back on what they learned from language brokering, many came to see, ‘Actually, I learned a lot from doing that.’”

Reflecting on her childhood, Kim realized that although there had been a role reversal, she felt the importance of supporting family transcended any feelings she had about roles in the first place.

“I didn’t choose this role for myself. But my parents didn’t choose the role of needing help either,” Kim said. “At the end of the day, the roles don’t matter. I am both a daughter and a caretaker, and as a family, all that matters is that we take care of each other.”

Although they cared deeply for each other, for much of Kim’s childhood, her family kept to themselves, rarely having moments in which they chose to be vulnerable with each other. 

“Silence at the dinner table was normal for my family. Like many other Asian American households, we rarely exchanged feelings, thoughts, and stories with one another,” Kim said. “I believe my parents never shared stories or even their emotions with their children because of a difference in culture.”

However, as an adult, Kim understands that they were focused on trying to survive in their new home. 

“They were in survival mode from day one in America. Time and space to be was a luxury they were without,” Kim said. 

For so long, Kim felt more like a caretaker than a child in her relationship with her parents. But as years and decades went by, Kim started to see how her parents’ bodies were growing weaker, how they were reaching a fragile stage of their life both mentally and physically. 

It was almost a sudden reminder that they were getting older — that no person escapes the cycle of life. 

“In my eyes, my parents had been frozen in time, until they weren’t. It broke my heart thinking about my parents leaving this Earth without me ever knowing them as people,” Kim said. “I desperately wanted to hear, learn, and preserve their stories.”

Now, as an adult, even if her parents don’t volunteer to share, Kim has chosen to ask rather than wait. About three years ago, she started to intentionally ask her parents about their upbringing, their hometown, and what their lives were like before they met each other. 

While piecing these answers together, she realized there were many blanks she could fill in on her own.

As a result of language brokering for decades, Kim grew closer to her parents, gaining insight into their preferences, habits, and behaviors. 

Similarly, studies have shown that youth brokers often report that language brokering facilitates family discussions, participation in family decision-making, and opportunities to connect with parents who may otherwise be less available. These experiences generally contribute to positive, adaptive family dynamics that support stronger relationships.

“I thought I barely knew them when, in fact, I did. From the moment I started to translate for my parents at the age of 9 years old, I was filling in the gaps where their English was lacking,” Kim said. “My umma and appa gave me a window into their being, even if it was a byproduct of an unfortunate burden of immigration.”

An example of how language brokering offered Kim insight into her parents is a particular trip to TJ Maxx. 

Her mother was browsing through leather bags, slowly trailing down the aisle as she ran her fingers along the rows of purses and clutches, only stopping when she found a bag that caught her eye. It was a beautiful, black leather shoulder bag, but after holding it up for a few seconds, she set it back down on the rack. 

“She wanted it in chestnut brown,” Kim said. “She said that brown is more classic, that you can wear it with many more outfits than black. So she had me ask one of the employees if they possibly had a brown bag in the back.”

Remembering this moment, Kim was able to recognize her mother’s love for fashion, her detailed care for what she wanted, and her knowledge of what would look good on her shoulders. 

“My umma was a woman who looked forward to the days she could get dressed up,” Kim said. “Church on Sunday was the one day out of the week she wasn’t in her oil-stained factory clothes of jeans and shirts.”

Whether it was a casual translation of menu items at a restaurant or inquiring about a different-colored purse, these translations of English to Korean served as an intimate place for discovering her parents. 

However, as with any intimate relationship, Kim and her family also faced many hardships, and through these struggles, her role as their daughter and translator took on a new, profound meaning.

After she and her sister found out about their father’s diagnosis in 2021, the two worked together to get the best care for him. 

“We had no time to process our own feelings,” Kim said. “I often wonder if my vigilance was perpetuated by being on guard, with my shields up, ready to fight for my parents at any given moment.”

Kim found herself in a whirlwind of decisions and challenges. Whether it was moving her father to a better hospital, ensuring he had a cancer specialist, or finding the correct Korean translation of medical terminology, Kim was experiencing a level of urgency she had never felt before.

“This sense of urgency was so unfamiliar, so much stronger than anything I had felt before. I was so scared, and sometimes, I really didn’t know what to do,” Kim said. “It’s that common point in many young adults’ lives when you are learning to care for your parents — in ways they have cared for you — for the first time.”

Although Kim sometimes felt lost, she reminded herself of her significance in her father’s life — she was not just his translator but his advocate.

“I was really translating care, not words. Any translator could’ve just been very literal, asking questions like ‘Is the cancer gone?’ or ‘What do we do now?’” Kim said. “But my sister and I can advocate for him, ask all the right questions, like ‘How can he take care of himself at home? ‘What should he eat?’ We became advocates, and the translator was just a secondary role.”

Looking back at that difficult period in her life, Kim understands the true power of translating for her father.

“To figure out his needs, to find the best care for him, all of that was so that I could help him be seen,” Kim said. “That’s what advocacy is all about.”

It’s true that Kim didn’t choose to be a language broker for her parents. But it’s also true that her parents didn’t choose to need help from their children either. 

“Translating was hard, but through this painful exchange, I saw my parents as people,” Kim said. “Our parents and elders are people outside of their parental care. They are people with stories that are hidden, ready to be discovered — stories of joy, strength, and humanness.”

Language brokering fosters complicated dynamics within a family. When a person is thrown into a situation without any preparation, it is traumatic. When a person is a parent who can’t advocate for their children because of language barriers, it is also traumatic. 

“On both ends, it feels unfair, and I remember having so many questions,” Kim said. “How do I translate for a person whom I barely know? How do I make decisions for a parent when I am their child? How do I ask without intruding, and how can they receive it without feeling embarrassed?”

These questions are still present in Kim’s life, but she is choosing to see them as a way to know her parents with greater empathy and understanding. 

“I know the life we have lived together was not only possible through our translations, but much more possible because of my parents’ relentless love for our family,” Kim said.

To those who also carry this unchosen responsibility of being a family translator, Kim wishes that their own family stories not be silenced. 

“Translations are a voice, a running thread for generations. They offer connections that go beyond spoken words,” Kim said. “Your voice is not only your voice, but your elders’, and through the translation of words, may we finally see them too.”