D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty’s administration soon will launch an aggressive campaign to hire more bilingual staff, addressing a long-standing dearth of dual-language employees in the D.C. government.
Though they make up 13 percent of the District’s population, Latinos are thought torepresent about 2 percent of D.C. employees — the percentage is less for the Vietnamese-, Korean-, Chinese- and Amharic-speaking populations. District law mandates equal access to customer service for many foreign-language speakers, but the government has fallen behind in its application.
“Some [departments] have more than others, and [the Office of Latino Affairs] tries to facilitate as much as possible, but sometimes you can go to some of the agencies and you won’t find anybody,” said Jay Haddock, co-chair of Fenty’s Latino transition team. “But I think we’ve come a long way, and I think it’s going to keep moving.”
As part of his 100 Days and Beyond action plan, Fenty pledged to aggressively recruit more bilingual employees, especially for critical customer service positions. A citywide bilingual job fair is scheduled for September, though the exact details are still being worked out.
The 2004 D.C. Language Access Act requires that all government agencies have bilingual staff and interpreters in public contact positions. But early on, Fenty’s transition teams pointed out that the District has not met the law’s conditions.
The mayor’s Asian and Pacific Islander transition team, for example, sought improvements to guarantee “equal access and participation to public services, programs and activities for residents … who are not English proficient.” His Latino supporters called for full enforcement and funding of the act, including “premium pay for these employees.”
Office of Human Rights Director Gustavo Velasquez, who is charged with enforcing the act, said his office is now developing the rules for its implementation — and the all-important system for filing a complaint.
“It’s very complex to have an entire government move in the direction and fully comply with the provisions of the act,” Velasquez said Monday.
D.C. bilingual job openings
» EMT and basic paramedic
» DMV customer call center supervisor
» Fire protection engineer, commercial inspection manager, code compliance specialist
