The Wrong Approach

Instead of pushing for people to speak English more consistently and to improve the language skills of those who come to the US, Mayor Bloomberg is taking the opposite approach.

He's ordering City agencies to provide translated copies of forms in six languages that are prevalent in the City:

There are an estimated 170 foreign languages spoken in New York City, and in nearly half of all households, English is not the primary language, according to the census in 2000. And given that the city receives more than 20 million calls from residents each year, officials said, communication can often be a challenge.

On Tuesday, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg ordered the city’s more than 100 agencies to provide language assistance in six foreign languages: Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Korean, Italian and French Creole. The order requires, for the first time, that the agencies follow the same standard when providing translation and interpretation to New Yorkers who do not speak English.

Immigrant advocates and city officials say it is the most comprehensive order of its kind in the country. The mayor refused to be specific about how much the services will cost, saying only that it was a “relatively small” amount given the size of the city’s budget. He added: “This executive order will make our city more accessible, while helping us become the most inclusive municipal government in the nation.”

“The fundamental basis of government is its interaction with its citizens,” the mayor said before signing the executive order at City Hall on Tuesday. “If people don’t know what we do, don’t know what they should do, what the law requires them to do, don’t know how to get services, all the money that we’re spending providing those services, providing those laws, is meaningless.”

The order requires that agencies translate essential public documents, pamphlets and forms in the six languages. But its reach is broader, as it allows for the use of a telephone-based service that can link immigrants with interpreters who speak Urdu, Hindi, Arabic and dozens of others less-common languages.

In prior generations, the city, state, and federal government pretty much demanded that people assimilate and learn English.

No longer.

Now, we've got to watch as the city expends considerable sums to accommodate other languages.

It's one thing to provide translation services for emergency services, the criminal justice system, or at health facilities, but to expend considerable sums on these translation services seems to be quite misguided, especially at a time when the City can ill afford to start new programs.

Curiously, Bloomberg doesn't attach a price tag to his latest pet project, which should raise red flags over the size and scope of what he's proposed.