Cesar Chavez Movie Won't be Lost in Translation with myLINGO App: First Spanish-Language Audio Track Created by Polish-Americans With Connection to His Past
As a nation of immigrants with various backgrounds and cultures, many of us in the United States have grandparents, parents or relatives whose first language is not English. While they can get by with basic communication, watching a movie and truly grasping its plot, message and humor is a whole different story.
Olenka Polak, co-founder of myLINGO, an app that allows users to watch movies at the theater in the language of their choice, spoke exclusively with the Latin Post about the exciting release of its first Spanish-language audio track for the Cesar Chavez biopic, which officially hits theaters today. She also spoke about an amazing and rare connection to Cesar Chavez's movement—her family's involvement in the Solidarity Movement in Poland.
"This is very exciting time for us," Polak, who at the young age of 20 made Forbes' "2014: 30 Under 30: Media," told the Latin Post.
"This is our first movie that we're releasing with the Spanish-language audio track, which we thought was very appropriate. Our film is from a Latino-based studio (distributed by Pantelion Films) ... a studio associated with the highest grossing foreign language film ever released in the U.S., which is Instructions Not Included, but they are releasing Cesar Chavez in the United States in English. So, this is a perfect service for a non-native speaker, who would also like to go to the movies, but would otherwise not understand it."
How does myLINGO work?
"Movie studios produce high-quality audio tracks in up to 25 different languages; however, these alternative versions are never available in movie theaters, and non-English speaking viewers must often wait months until the DVD release to enjoy the latest films," according to its official site. "myLINGO compiles these multi-lingual audio tracks and makes them available for download for free in real time—via headphones connected to their smartphone—syncing the alternative tracks to precise moments of an in-theater film."
The film, Cesar Chavez, is based on the iconic labor leader who fought for farmers to unionize, have better pay and working conditions as they tried to earn a living picking grapes in the fields of California. He helped create the National Farmworkers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers. His fight for equality, civil rights, political recognition and environmental justice wasn't just for farm workers, however, but for all Latino workers who were treated unfairly and weren't represented.
myLINGO'S Personal, Polish Connection to Cesar Chavez
What does a Polish-American, Harvard student-turned-tech entrepreneur have in common with Cesar Chavez? As it turns out, a lot.
Polak, who was born to Polish parents, Jerzy and Jolanta Polak, has a major connection to Cesar Chavez's mission, which further proves the Mexican-American farm worker, labor leader and civil rights activist has global appeal and reach far beyond our borders.
"I actual feel especially close to the story of Cesar Chavez because my parents came from the Solidarity Movement in the '80s, which was very similar to the civil rights for workers. My dad took photographs for the underground movement," she said.
In the 1980s, Solidarity was a broad anti-bureaucratic social movement, using the methods of civil resistance to advance the causes of workers' rights and social change. The government attempted to destroy the union during the period of martial law in the early 1980s and several years of political repression but in the end was forced to negotiate with the union.
Given the circumstances and political landscape at the time, you could say that Polak's father, Jerzy, who was at one point imprisoned for his activism and his wife, Jolanta, who stuck by his side, were like Cesar and Helen Chavez in their own right.
Polak's parents came to the United States in 1989 seeking political asylum, with only two suitcases—one of which was filled with her father's rare footage of the Solidarity Movement in Poland.
"You couldn't document anything at the time because it was illegal," Polak added.
As a student at Greenwich High School in Connecticut, her curiosity about her father's dusty boxes filled with photographs and negatives led to a pivotal moment for her family, becoming an ode to Poland. She developed the film and worked with Photoshop to create panoramas of three million protesters who gathered at Częstochowa during a pro-Solidarity rally, among many others.
Fast forward to her freshman year at Harvard, when she co-curated an exhibition of her father's photographs with Mark Kramer, of the Cold War studies department at the university's Davis Center. The exhibition, which ran from Dec. 2012 to Jan. 2013, was titled "Poland, Solidarity, and Martial Law, 1980-1981: A 30-Year Retrospective."
The Olenka Polak Collection was then donated to Harvard after the exhibition concluded.
While she continued with her studies at Harvard, there was something bigger pulling her from top-tier academia—her desire to help others lost in translation.
During a visit from her Polish cousins and a trip to the movie theater to see Hugo, she and her brother, Adam, who is now her myLINGO co-founder, had a revelatory moment.
Recalling that the only movie that her family had seen together in an actual movie theater was Le Miserables—only because it was a musical—Polak realized that as a family unit, they were missing out on a true, cinematic experience.
"We went to see Hugo, and they didn't get it, they were frustrated by the language barrier ... They were language displaced," a term that Polak uses that refers to people who are either temporarily or permanently in a country where most people don't speak their "preferred language."
Thus the concept for myLINGO was born.
The economics and film major started myLINGO her sophomore year with her co-founder brother, Adam, but soon realized that she couldn't juggle meetings in Los Angeles and attend class in Cambridge at the same time. So, she decided to drop out of Harvard.
"Why did I drop out of Harvard? The LDI (language-displaced individuals) market is 100 million people worldwide," she told Forbes.
Her concept won the 2013 Harvard Innovation Challenge and attracted attention from investors.
Will subtitles be a thing of the past?
"I was a film student at school (in addition to an economics major) before I dropped out ... The fact that subtitles totally grasp the attention of the viewer, having to read the text, you miss a great deal of the actual playing composition—as a director that kills the experience," Polak said.
A few of myLINGO's testimonials backed Polak's theory.
"It is simple, practical, super practical—press, press, press, and it is done." -- Claudinela, 41 yrs old, English level: fluent
Will you use myLINGO in the future?
"It would give me more will to watch more movies in English. I watched this movie in English subtitles, but I did not laugh as much as I did today. In English subtitles, they speak too fast..." - Alexandria, 37 yrs old, English level: weak
"I found it extremely interesting; it was great, it was perfect. I am a translator and everything that I heard was practically perfect with what was happening, but I think, the equipment was perfect. Because there are many people who go back home from here and don't know it. Sometimes, they don't go to the movie theater with us because they don't know the language." - Belarmino, 31 yrs old, English level: fluent
While Polak isn't a Latina, she realizes the importance of being able to understand the message behind the powerful Cesar Chavez biopic.
She also points out that many Latinos are avid movie-goers, and that they are the most tapped into mobile phones.
"Right now there are 37.6 million people who speak Spanish in the U.S." Polak said, "and there are roughly 23.9 million people who are smartphone users and who speak Spanish in the United States. Hispanics tend to have a higher movie presence at six movies per year on average," which ultimately affects domestic box office sales. "So that's moving the needle."
Check out the Latin Post's Cesar Chavez Coverage:
Cesar Chavez NYC Movie Premiere Evokes Pride from Son Paul Chavez, Who Carries on Legacy
Diego Luna on Directing 'Cesar Chavez' That's Impacting Washington: "It's Been Like a Dream"