Graduate Student Spanish Interpreters Help Clients With Limited English File Tax Returns at CSUN VITA Clinic

“You can see the relief on their faces,” said Daira Ortiz, a CSUN graduate student pursuing a master’s degree in Spanish, who volunteers as an interpreter at CSUN’s VITA Clinic, which serves low-income and immigrant taxpayers in the San Fernando Valley. “After we help them and make them feel comfortable, it is something emotional.”

Ortiz, who hopes to earn a Ph.D. in Spanish and teach at the college level, is one of several graduate-level Spanish students
who volunteered at the VITA Clinic in 2024, helping clients with limited English navigate the tax preparation process. The graduate students say the experience provides them with hands-on training in interpreting what can sometimes be a complex topic.

Professor Svetlana V. Tyutina, director of CSUN’s Spanish graduate program, coordinates interpreters for the VITA Clinic through service-learning opportunities in her translation and linguistics courses. In Tyutina’s classes, her students review tax vocabulary and accounting terminology to ensure they will be helpful to both the clients and the tax preparers. Students also undergo rigorous Internal Revenue Service training and receive IRS Standard of Conduct certification prior to starting at the VITA Clinic.

“It’s invaluable,” Tyutina said of her students’ out-of-the- classroom volunteer experiences at VITA. “We can do as much practice as we’d like, but nothing comes close to having a real client, having real tax issues, helping fill in real IRS forms, addressing their clients’ questions, their doubts. It’s not only the language that students are practicing, but work ethics, professional interactions and confidentiality.”

Elizabeth Chavolla, another VITA Clinic volunteer interpreter, said the experience is helping her as a journalist. Chavolla, a bilingual digital producer for NBC4 and Telemundo 52, returned to CSUN to earn her Master’s in Spanish to better serve the community. “We have a large Spanish speaking population in this market and it is good for me to see what their needs are,” she said.

Chavolla said she has worked with VITA Clinic tax preparers
by rendering their explanations into Spanish to help clients understand their tax returns, such as who qualifies as a dependent. “Some people don’t understand that, so we help break it down,” she said. “It’s good because then they understand the process.”

Graduate student Natali Samame said volunteering as a translator at the VITA Clinic was rewarding. “I can help people communicate and be the bridge between the English speaker and the Spanish speaker. And we’re talking about the IRS, so it’s very important that we are communicating everything the right way. So that makes me feel very good.”

Graduate student Valeria Corona, was hired as a paid VITA Clinic Spanish interpreter after going “above and beyond what was expected of her” as a volunteer, Tyutina said.

Corona encouraged future Spanish graduate students to follow in her footsteps and take advantage of the opportunity to work at the VITA Clinic. “This is a great opportunity,” Corona said. “You are providing a great service for people who really need it and it is a really good learning opportunity.”