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Oakland may order hiring of bilingual workers

The Associated Press
Tuesday April 24, 2001

 

OAKLAND — A few months after he took office, Taiwan-born Councilman Danny Wan got a request from City Hall security: Could he come downstairs to help a resident who spoke only Chinese find the right department? 

He was glad to help, but “it made me really wonder. What other services are out there that no one can access?” 

On Tuesday, Wan and fellow council members are expected to pass a groundbreaking ordinance requiring city departments that deal with the public to have, or make plans to hire, some bilingual staff. 

“The city has an obligation to provide the basic city services such as police and fire to everybody who pays taxes. Just because somebody may not be fluent in English yet does not mean they should be excluded,” Wan said. 

Advocates believe Oakland would be the first city in California, and perhaps the nation, to mandate bilingual hiring. San Francisco supervisors are scheduled to vote on a similar ordinance in May. 

California and federal laws already require agencies to make their programs and services accessible to people with limited English, but those requirements aren’t enforced and compliance is spotty, civil rights officials say. 

Before he left office, President Clinton signed an order boosting the federal language requirement. Conservative groups, which believe English should be the nation’s official language, are working to overturn that. 

The Oakland ordinance “sounds more progressive than other municipalities,” said Walter Bacak, executive director of the American Translators Association, based in Alexandria, Va. 

The ordinance, sponsored by Wan and council President Ignacio De La Fuente, would require that departments – such as those involving fire, police, senior citizens centers, building permits and other services – identify public-access positions and determine whether they have employees in them who can speak Spanish or Chinese, the prevalent languages of limited-English speakers in Oakland. 

Departments that don’t have such employees will have to start filling vacancies with bilingual workers. 

The ordinance, which would be phased in over two years, also requires setting up an in-house translation center, the major cost of the new measure at an estimated $200,000 to $300,000 a year. 

Language has been a hot-button issue for multicultural America, with more than 20 states declaring English the official language. Those states include California, where voters approved a constitutional amendment making English the official language in 1986, although it hasn’t been enforced. 

Mauro E. Mujica, chairman and CEO of the group U.S. English, thinks Oakland is going too far. 

Mujica, who speaks four languages, said it’s always a good idea to hire bilingual workers, but “to institutionalize it and pass a regulation that requires municipalities to hire people that are specifically bilingual in certain languages – that will get them into a lot of trouble.” 

Oakland resident Yu-Yung Shen thinks the bilingual policy is a “very good” idea. 

He was stopped in Oakland’s Chinatown about a year ago for running a red light. Because of his limited English, he couldn’t explain that he had entered the intersection on a green but had to stop halfway through, eventually getting stuck on the red, because a pedestrian had stepped off the curb, out of sight of the policeman. 

When he went to pay the ticket, no one at the counter spoke Cantonese, so Shen paid the $290 fine and also sat through an all-English traffic school. 

An Oakland police spokesman said the department does have a translation service available by radio. However, the person being stopped has to be able to speak enough English to request it. 

The new ordinance, Wan said, would require the police department to put bilingual officers in regions with large numbers of non-English speakers, such as Chinatown. 

For Shen, being able to count on speaking to someone in his own language would be a big improvement. 

“That way I can always present my case,” he said, speaking through an interpreter. “If I get into trouble, I can explain my situation.”