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Wikipedia ‘Edit-a-Thon’ translates Spanish entries on Latin artists

Raquel Salas Rivera, the 2018-2019 poet laureate of Philadelphia, helped participants create new English entries from Spanish ones, while retaining the Spanish-language nuances, context and writing styles.

Wikipedian-in-residence at the Science History Institute, Mary Mark Ockerbloom (right), introduces one of Drexel's Spanish translation students to the editing software during the Edit-A-Thon, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Library and Archives at the Perelman Building. March 2, 2019.
Wikipedian-in-residence at the Science History Institute, Mary Mark Ockerbloom (right), introduces one of Drexel's Spanish translation students to the editing software during the Edit-A-Thon, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Library and Archives at the Perelman Building. March 2, 2019.Read moreJesenia De Moya Correa

It was the fourth time the Philadelphia Museum of Art held a Wikipedia “Edit-a-Thon," but its first dedicated to Latino communities.

This 2019 Art+Feminism event Saturday — part of a global campaign that takes place every March to create more content on the open-source, online encyclopedia about women, queer, and nonbinary artists — asked participants to translate Spanish entries to English to increase access to the artists’ work.

“We decided that this was a way to highlight some of the Latina artists in our collection, and language becomes a big part of that,” said Ricard Sieber, librarian at the Art Museum.

The invitation to translate the entries on Latina artists based here and in other countries was extended to language translation students from Drexel University — and it came with some challenges. How could they retain the essence of Spanish-only expressions or address cultural gaps between the languages? How would they make sure the entries stayed objective? Raquel Salas Rivera, the poet laureate of Philadelphia for 2018-19, helped editors frame the English-language entries so that they still keep their Spanish-language context.

“It’s kind of like a detective’s search," said Steve Vásquez Dolph, assistant teaching professor at Drexel’s department of global studies and modern languages, "where the students are trying to piece together bits of information to create a whole narrative in English for these artists.”

By the end of the event, 25 people had worked on 19 articles, linking them to newspapers, blogs, books, Facebook pages of the artists, or spaces where the artists have presented their work, according to the organizers. Among the artist entries edited were: Azalea Quiñones, Eugenia Belín Sarmiento, Julia Wernicke, Juana Saltitopa, and Ofelia Echagüe Vera.