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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Aracelis Lucero, Managing Director of Masa
4:21:17
ยท
5 min
Aracelis Lucero, Managing Director of Masa, testified about the needs of indigenous language-speaking immigrants in New York City, emphasizing the importance of language justice and interpretation services. She presented survey results highlighting the challenges faced by this community and advocated for continued funding for language access initiatives and other immigrant support programs.
- Requested continued funding of $5 million for the language worker cooperative and interpreter bank
- Highlighted the need for quality interpretation services in healthcare, education, and court settings
- Advocated for the restoration of funding for the rapid response network at Knife Up and the ASLAN network
- Called for transparency in funding distribution across immigrant-serving organizations and accountability from the Department of Education in protecting immigrant families and children
Aracelis Lucero
4:21:17
Good afternoon.
4:21:19
I have a little bit of cough so bear with me.
4:21:21
My name is Araceli Zucerro.
4:21:23
I'm the executive director of Masson.
4:21:24
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today and for always your fierce advocacy for asking the right questions unapologetically.
4:21:31
I love that.
4:21:33
And so I represent an organization in the South Bronx.
4:21:37
Today, did wanna focus on a particular community.
4:21:41
About 35% of the community that we serve speaks an indigenous language of Latin America.
4:21:46
Of these languages include Mixteco, Nau, to name a few.
4:21:53
And today, we're here to uplift our indigenous speaking immigrant community who are doubly marginalized as they try to navigate complex systems in a language that isn't even their primary language, and even Spanish interpretations isn't always offered available or of quality service as I think we have witnessed many times.
4:22:12
And they certainly at this moment face imminent threats given their lack of immigration status.
4:22:20
In particular, our data confirms existing disparities between indigenous community members and the general immigration population that we serve.
4:22:27
We find that our indigenous speaking communities earn less, have had less opportunities to complete high school, and opportunities to complete other higher levels of formal education.
4:22:37
They often feel discriminated against for their indigenous background, immigrant status, and lack of English proficiency.
4:22:44
Since 02/2017, the Language Justice Collaborative has been leading the effort for language justice in New York City to include people who speak languages of limited diffusion.
4:22:54
Massa is honored to be leading the charge in building New York City's capacity to provide quality interpretation services in both English and Spanish and indigenous languages by training interpreters and building a community of interpreter program and launching a language worker cooperative.
4:23:09
We are requesting that the city council continue to provide, it was originally 5,000,000, in funding to support the innovative work of the language worker cooperative and the interpreter bank.
4:23:20
I'd like to take this time, if I may, to share some of the results from a 2023 survey that we did to 200 indigenous speakers from Latin America living across New York City, which represent about 11 languages of Latin America.
4:23:33
90 Percent of the respondents said that they would be interested in becoming an interpreter and forming part of a worker cooperative.
4:23:40
Independently, 81% were interested in receiving support to start a business, and 21 and only 21% had had prior experience in starting a business.
4:23:50
81 reported feeling job secure, which I'm certain that job secure at the moment, which I'm certain has decreased at this time, but only 26% of the respondents said that their income was sufficient to support their families.
4:24:06
A % of our respondents agreed that quality interpretation services for indigenous speakers was needed, and 74% had already had prior experience interpreting informally for family and fellow community members.
4:24:20
When asked in what industries interpretation services were most needed, 93% responded in the health sector such as clinics and hospitals, 66% in education, and 55% in courts such as criminal and immigration court.
4:24:34
The language access funding not only ensures that we do the right thing by our most marginalized communities, but it's a workforce development opportunity that would allow community members to gain entrepreneurial skills and leverage a key asset they already have, which is their mother tongues so that they could secure more income for themselves.
4:24:51
If you allow me really briefly, I'd also like to advocate for the restoration and funding of the rapid response network at Knife Up.
4:24:59
That is really, really critical work to continue to support innovative community based solutions such as a pro se plus project.
4:25:06
It was one of the first groups that really met the call to action in December 2022.
4:25:11
We meet every Thursday, and I think it's a really good model that we should continue to be able to fund.
4:25:17
It's part of the ASLAN network that OSLON network that today I learned was zeroed out, and so we'd love your advocacy on making sure that this project continues to continue to provide adult literacy based funding and pilot funding to pass intro two fourteen and to ensure transparency and equity in the distribution of funding across immigrant serving organizations.
4:25:40
I think we started that conversation, how do we make sure that the funding is going is being fairly distributed across the city to the organizations on the ground.
4:25:50
And last but not least, to continue to hold the Department of Education accountable for protecting immigrant families and children.
4:25:58
Just a quick thing to share, we did share with a district that I can share more details later that we were able to provide Know Your Rights sessions, and they had said that they had some preapproved list, but they were still having a hard time getting Know Your Rights sessions.
4:26:16
And so it's really alarming to me that, you know, we can't go in, we're ready to go in, and we've been doing this with other schools, but that there's limitations, and so I think that the Department of Education should focus on just meeting the needs of immigrant families and getting them the help that they need as quickly as possible with local groups that are have history doing the work.
4:26:37
So just wanted to share that.