Mayor Adrian Fenty unveiled a campaign Wednesday to educate D.C.’s non-English speaking residents on their rights under the city’s language access law and to finally implement the statute three years after it went on the books.
For the roughly 60,000 D.C. residents who have limited or no English language skills, the 2004 Language Access Act guaranteed access to free interpreters, to translated documents and to a reasonable complaint process. But the District has accomplished little toward those ends, Fenty acknowledged during a news conference outside Judiciary Square.
“In our community there’s still many, many people who are unaware that this law is in effect and they don’t know how to file a complaint,” said Gustavo Velasquez, director of the D.C. Office of Human Rights.
A recent survey by Bread for the City, a nonprofit clearinghouse for social services, found the vast majority of its clients were not informed by the D.C. Department of Human Services that interpreters or translated documents were available, said Jennifer Deng-Pickett, community organizer with the D.C. Language Access Coalition. Another example: Vietnamese and Chinese youth are skipping school out of fear of gangs, but when a letter is sent home explaining their subsequent suspensions, it’s delivered in English.
“They have no idea their children are even facing these issues or how to come in and get their kids reinstated,” she said.
Fenty and Velasquez unveiled a series of initiatives to advance language access, including wallet-sized cards published in six languages that say, “I need language assistance. Please make note of my spoken language in your records, as well as my need for an interpreter.” The District also has named language access coordinators for 25 agencies, has translated 380 documents and expects to lay out a formal complaint and enforcement process by December.
Gabriel Rojo with the D.C. Latino PAC said the cards are not much more than a “nice gesture.” The District, he said, must change an anti-immigrant culture within its agencies.
For more information on the Language Access Act:
» Contact the Office of Human Rights
» 202-727-3942
» www.ohr.dc.gov
