OAKLAND — In a small, windowless office next to a wine shop in the heart of the Jack London district, Cristina Matias Mendoza was helping a teenage boy with a visa application. They spoke in Mam, a Mayan language native to Guatemala now heard frequently 3,000 miles north in the tiny shops and crowded streets of Oakland.

Mendoza understands how hard it is to come to a new home and have no way to communicate with others. When she immigrated to Oakland 15 years ago, no one looked like her or spoke Mam. But today, the language she speaks has become a unique and powerful skill in her new home, where Mam speakers are one of the fastest growing populations in the city, say nonprofit groups and community members.

“I can hear people speak Mam in every corner,” said Mendoza, 26. “It’s still growing. More people are entering the U.S. The need for them to express themselves or find someone who can help them with their language is great.”

Much like the Chinese in San Francisco, Afghans in Fremont and Vietnamese refugees in San Jose, Mam speakers are one of the newest ethnic communities to thrive in the melting pot of the Bay Area, the second most diverse metro region in the United States, according to a report by the national research institute Policy Link.

There’s no official population estimate for the Mam community in Oakland. The U.S. Census Bureau doesn’t collect data on people who speak specific dialects beyond the most common languages, and Alameda County said it hasn’t tracked the population. But their growing presence is noted in Mam markets and churches in the Fruitvale neighborhood, in workplaces, schools and most recently, in courthouses, where many go to resolve immigration issues.

Guatemala’s 36-year civil war, which ended in 1996, caused thousands to flee north, but recent Guatemalan immigrants — like thousands of others in Central America — have fled overwhelming poverty and violence, and in the case of indigenous Mam speakers, racism and discrimination too. Like many recent arrivals, their immigration statuses are a mix, ranging from those who are granted aslyum to others with family sponsors or visas to those who come without documents.

The vast majority of Oakland’s Mam immigrants are from Todos Santos Cuchumatán, a municipality in the state of Huehuetenango in western Guatemala. It’s not clear why Oakland has become a preferred destination, though several interpreters say most Mam have followed family here. But education level, native tongue, existing social networks and employment opportunities are some of the important factors that determine where immigrants will migrate to, according to Dr. Shishir Mathur, associate dean of research at San Jose State University’s College of Social Sciences.

Mam in Court

Mam is now one of the top 10 languages spoken in immigration court nationwide, according to Department of Justice statistics from 2016, the most recent available. Just five years ago, it didn’t even crack the list of the top 25 languages.

Local agencies in recent years have tried to bridge the language gap by providing Spanish interpreters to Mam speakers, a well-intended effort with little benefit because the two languages are so different.

“Spanish bears no relationship to Mayan languages or any of the indigenous languages in the Americas,” said Nora England, a professor of linguistics with a specialty in Mayan languages at the University of Texas at Austin. “Indigenous people in Latin America, many of them have some Spanish but it is a completely rural kind of Spanish, which sometimes bears no resemblance to the … language that interpreters speak.”

Alameda County court interpreter Naomi Adelson remembers having to haggle with county staff over assigning Mam interpreters — not Spanish interpreters — to Mam cases just three or four years ago. That doesn’t happen anymore now that there are more Mam interpreters, an improvement she describes as “incredible.”

“When a Mam detainee sees the interpreter (in court)… that person comes in and is the most familiar thing that they have seen,” said Adelson, who also leads the Mayan language interpreter program at Oakland’s Mayab Association, where she is training 10 new Mam interpreters — the most she’s ever had. “In comes this Mam face in a Mam shirt from their hometown. You cannot fake that.”

Oswaldo Martin first began interpreting in Alameda County courts to help pay for his college education. But soon it became a way to help fellow Mam people find their voice in a new land.

As an Alameda County court interpreter, Martin, 23, translates — often in traditional Mam garb — as an independent contractor hired by a selection of law firms. He also leads weekly Mam workshops at the Cesar Chavez library to train a tiny group of interpreters. For Martin, who immigrated from Guatemala with his mother at age 4, interpreting has provided a window into the struggles — including discrimination, domestic violence, poverty and immigration — of his own people.

“It’s a way of being a cultural ambassador,” he said of interpreting. “You’re able to explain people’s stories. You’re able to give them visibility.”

We Never Left

At the Social Justice Collaborative where Mendoza works as an interpreter and paralegal, the organization has hired two additional interpreters to assist the growing number of Mam clients. The collaborative helped 244 Mam-speaking clients in 2017, up from 218 in 2016 and 188 in 2015.

“Every time (a new Mam client) comes in, they’re surprised to see I’m there to help them out,” Mendoza said. “Other people have told them there’s a Mam speaker that could help them.”

The nonprofit was a saving grace for Maria, 23, who left Guatemala about four years ago to join an older sister in Oakland.

“Before, I didn’t know how or where to ask for help,” she said through an interpreter. “Some of us don’t know other languages. They help us communicate what we want and need.”

A few years after settling in the U.S. with her mother and sister, Mendoza and her family noticed the growing presence of Mam people in Oakland who — alone in a new place with no way to communicate with others — felt isolated and afraid. They created a small prayer group to help the local Mam feel at home, where they read the bible in Spanish and then translated the scriptures into Mam. Today, the “Fuente de Agua Viva” group meets twice a week and has about 100 members.

“We feel like we’re in our town or back home,” Mendoza said. “We can feel as if we never left.”