This chapter examines the reliance of the category of ‘asylum’ on a transnational social-scientific vocabulary since its codification into international law in 1951. It makes a case for the use of a vernacular, non-imported lexicon in order to directly speak to the cultural-linguistic register of claimants who are unfamiliar with asylum’s legal jargon. This chapter draws on the author's personal experience as a Spanish-language interpreter and translator for the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant (EBSC). The chapter analyzes the cases of two Central American asylum seekers with whom the author worked at EBSC to demonstrate the extent to which a transnationally imported legal lexicon fails entirely to connect with their lived trauma. In that vein, it is argued that the field of translation and interpretation can help bring asylum as a legal category into closer alignment with the cultural-linguistic register of asylum seekers who come from such places as El Salvador and Guatemala.