REMARKS
Persistent gaps in language access services, particularly in emergency situations
1:17:29
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136 sec
Council Member Alexa Avilés highlights persistent gaps in language access services, particularly in emergency situations, despite claims of compliance with Local Law 30.
- Avilés recounts a personal experience of a fire emergency where Chinese language documents were unavailable
- The incident involved 140 people on a sidewalk with no emergency documentation in Chinese
- Neither FDNY nor MOIA had staff available to provide proper translation
- The use of Google Translate for emergency documents resulted in unusable translations
- Avilés emphasizes the disconnect between claims of compliance and the reality of serious, persisting gaps in language access services
Alexa Avilés
1:17:29
Right.
1:17:29
No.
1:17:29
I I appreciate that, and we can't hold the agencies accountable.
1:17:33
Is is the point, but we're growing the infrastructure.
1:17:36
And again, certainly, we we are delighted that there have been increases in staff because it it begins to show the commitment.
1:17:48
To this effort.
1:17:50
And clearly, we need a lot more investment.
1:17:53
It is one of the most fundamental responses we hear across city agencies.
1:18:00
I, in fact, have had my very own variances of having a fire, a 140 people out on a sidewalk with no documentation from emergency services in Chinese.
1:18:13
I called the mayor's office.
1:18:15
FDNY had nothing.
1:18:17
Moia, we we called Moia.
1:18:20
No one had staff.
1:18:21
They Google translated emergency documents, which were gobbledygook as you know.
1:18:29
So we have a long way to go.
1:18:31
So part part of the question is how do you vision as you move forward and you're building this infrastructure that we have some levels of accountability so that we are growing.
1:18:41
And so it is really to get your sense of that.
1:18:45
Right, who who are really just, like, building it.
1:18:50
Because they're still, like, really serious, persisting gaps on on things Like, when you say, you know, we're compliant on language law 30, and yet there's an emergency service situation, and we can't get a basic document in Chinese.
1:19:10
That that problem there is crazy making, right, to hear your compliant and yet a city can't produce an emergency service document.
1:19:22
And one of the languages, it says, it has and supposed to do by the law.
1:19:28
So this is part of that, you know, pushing the threshold and standard.
1:19:35
Because I do I do think we are we We're gonna do bet we're gonna continue to do better.
1:19:39
We're all committed to this.
1:19:41
But I think I wanna move on because we believe we're the point.
