2. ACCOMMODATING FOR LANGUAGES
languages of immigrants
When considering the accessibility of services and information for the immigrants in San Mateo County, language becomes another concern. According to the United States Census Bureau, 205,302 households, meaning over 77% of all 264,906 foreign-born households in the county, are non-English speaking households. Moreover, about 37% of those non-English speaking households answered that their English level was less than “very well,” meaning that they are group of people who need some sort of linguistic assistance when accessing information.
Looking at the data of where the immigrants in San Mateo come from, ACS (5years) reveals that the top 9 sending countries are China, Philippines, Mexico, El Salvador, India, Taiwan, Vietnam, Nicaragua, and Peru; the first three having extremely high numbers. Therefore, the first language spoken by immigrant households are most likely to be Chinese (Mandarin / Cantonese) , Tagalog and Spanish, as well as Hindi and Vietnamese.
languages offered by organizations
During our research, we looked into BIMI to search the language accessibility of 17 health clinics, 5 legal clinics and 2 other social clinics that serve for the community of San Mateo.
As for the health clinics, seven out of the 17 only provides services with English, but for the remaining 10 clinics, the language is rather diversified. Seven of them provide service with more than 9 different languages including all of the above mentioned Chinese, Tagalog, Spanish, Hindi and Vietnamese. While the remaining three are rather concentrated for specific immigrant groups, such as one targeting the Asian community providing service with Chinese and Vietnamese, and another one that only has Spanish, as an over all, it is possible to say that the health centers in San Mateo is providing linguistic assistance in a balanced way.
On the contrary, the services of legal clinics that assist the immigrants with legal adjustment of status or citizenship application is limited to certain language speakers. Out of the five clinics that was examined, only one provides services with multiple languages including the five major foreign languages in San Mateo. Two out of the remaining four only provides assistance to Spanish speaking population, and one only for Chinese speakers. The fifth organization has a website that can be translated to 100+ different languages, but the quality of it is questionable, considering that it relies on automatic Google translation.
Recommendations
From our analysis of the data regarding languages spoken in the county and the ways in which health and legal services are provided by organizations, it is obvious that such services are not necessarily accessible to immigrant communities in the county.
Considering the health clinics, about 40% of them are not prepared to serve the non-English speaking population. Taking into account that about 35% of the whole population is foreign born and most of them speak languages other than English as their first language, such health clinics have an obligation to be more accessible for foreign language speakers, considering that they are the essential source of information during times of emergency such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, as for the organizations that are aware of the immigrant needs, it can be said that they provide sufficient linguistic support, generally coping with all the major foreign languages spoken in the county.
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On the other hand, the legal clinics in general are more ready to serve for the immigrant communities, which is inevitable regarding the content of the services provided. However, the existence of such organizations does not guarantee accessibility of information and services to immigrants in need, as the translation is limited to specific languages. Tagalog, Hindi and Vietnamese speaking population do not have a sufficient place to seek for assistance, despite the fact that they are few of the most spoken languages in San Mateo. Moreover, legal clinics in general too much focus on one immigrant group. This means that even if an immigrant spoke one of the major languages such as Chinese or Spanish, they have to seek assistance to a specific organization that is not necessarily the most accessible regarding physical distance from their residence. In order to solve this linguistic inaccessibility of legal clinics, each of such organizations must provide translation of information and services in multiple foreign languages, choice of which reflects the high distribution of Asian and Central-South American immigrants in the county.
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