Siri Nergaard, editor of Translation: A Transdisciplinary Journal, interviewed Vicente Rafael in May 2013 at the Nida School of Translation Studies in Misano Adriatico, Italy. Rafael explains how he became interested in translation when he came upon the deep connection between translation, colonization, and conversion in his study of the Spanish colonization of the Philippines. He sees language as a historical agent of colonization and explains the role played by translation. “Translation is always at war,” he says; it has to do with a struggle to maintain control over linguistic plurality. But at the same time translation also means...