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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Navi Bains, Associate Director of Advocacy and Policy at Asian American Federation
4:26:50
ยท
3 min
Navi Bains from the Asian American Federation testified on the FY26 budget, focusing on language access needs for Asian Americans in NYC. She highlighted the high rates of limited English proficiency in the Asian community and advocated for increased funding for language access programming.
- Emphasized the need for language access as part of NYC's commitment as a sanctuary city
- Discussed the progress of developing a language access cooperative and community interpreter bank
- Highlighted the potential for these programs to provide employment opportunities and meet growing demand for language services
Navi Bains
4:26:50
Okay, thank you to Chair Alexa Aviles and the Committee on Immigration for holding this hearing and for giving us the opportunity to testify on fiscal year twenty six budget.
4:26:59
I am Navi or Navi Baines.
4:27:01
I'm the associate director of advocacy and policy at the Asian American Federation where we proudly represent the collective voice of more than 70 member non profit organizations that serve 1,500,000 Asian New Yorkers.
4:27:14
I want to start off by saying that we firmly believe that as a sanctuary city, we should welcome all immigrants with the dignity and fairness they deserve so they can come to this country like so many of us or our parents did to work hard and provide a safe life for our families.
4:27:30
One in six New Yorkers is Asian and our community is the fastest growing demographic in the city, making up over 17% of the total population.
4:27:40
My written testimony will heighten the vast needs of our community, but today, right now, I want to focus on our language access needs as a member of the Language Justice Collaborative.
4:27:57
So, the Asian Americans have the highest rates of limited English language proficiency in the city.
4:28:03
The current limited English proficiency rate for our community is forty four percent, meaning nearly one in two Asians face language challenges that may limit their access to government services, employment, education,
Anh-Thu Nguyen
4:28:15
and civic
Navi Bains
4:28:15
participation.
4:28:17
AEF along with our community members act, MASA NYC, HOPE, and IARC, we advocate for increased language access through the enforcement of existing laws and by creating innovative programs like my colleagues have already discussed to address gaps in language interpretation services.
4:28:34
In fiscal year twenty five, City Council allocated 3,800,000.0 towards language access programming, including for the development of language access cooperatives and a community interpreter bank.
4:28:45
We applaud the council support and urge you all to again support funding for this initiative in the fiscal year twenty six budget to ensure continuity and sustainability for these programs that are already in progress.
4:28:58
I'd like to share that within this fiscal year, AAF worked with our member organizations to recruit community members to serve as prospective translators in our Asian language work cooperative.
4:29:08
So far, we've screened and recruited community members and are putting 40 people who've passed the screening process through language testing to ensure they meet the qualifications to become translators.
4:29:20
Prospective members of the cooperative will later go on through interpreter training, and once that's completed, they will be poised to provide interpretation and translation services, as well as ESOL instruction.
4:29:32
In addition to providing government and non profit interpretation, they have the potential to meet the ever growing demand for professional high quality language services for our court system, for hospitals, schools, the private sector.
4:29:44
And, all this while, this opportunity provides an employment and business ownership chance to our local community members, who many of whom are already meeting the city's gap in translation services without any compensation at all for doing this work.
4:29:59
I'm happy to answer any questions about the work that we've done so far, and thank you for your time.