Posted on: Tuesday, February 4, 2003

Help may be near for non-English speakers

By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer

Social agencies that help immigrants are again pressing state lawmakers to establish a language-access commission that would improve assistance to people who speak little English, as required under federal law.

Bills seeking the creation of a commission and a state plan for helping those with language problems are moving through both houses of the Legislature, and one comes up for a public hearing at 9 a.m. today in the State Capitol, Room 329.

Sister Ernest Chung, social policy director at Catholic Charities, a group backing the bills, said she once saw a sign at a state agency urging non-English speakers to bring an interpreter, written in English. She offered the example of how people who don't face a language barrier lack understanding about the problem.

"We are such a diverse population," Chung said. "We must attend to this need."

The legislation has the backing of the Interagency Council for Immigrants and Refugees, a coalition that supported the bill passed in the 2002 Legislature but vetoed by then-Gov. Ben Cayetano.

The bills advancing this year would establish the commission within the Department of Labor's Office of Community Services; both the Senate and House versions would include funding, though the amount isn't listed yet.

According to the 2000 Census, about 26.6 percent of people in Hawai'i age 5 and up speak languages other than English at home.

An executive order issued by President Clinton and upheld by President Bush compels any individual or agency that receives federal money to provide services to speakers of all languages.