Workforce Language Services

Having lived in my husband’s village in southern Mexico, I’ve seen firsthand how the Yucatec Maya are losing their collective ability to speak Yucatec Maya, their indigenous dialect, with each passing generation.  A startling number of youth consistently answer in Spanish when their parents and grandparents address them in Maya. 

As we discuss having children in the U.S., I take for granted that my offspring will grow up speaking both Spanish and English, and perhaps Maya that they will learn from their extended family.  I expected it to be seamless and natural for my husband to speak Spanish to our children and I will speak English to them.  Until coming across this post in which one woman details the resistance her children have put up at learning and speaking Spanish, I operated under the illusion that any child would naturally feel comfortable speaking the languages that their parents chose to teach them.

I wish the best to Carmen Juri, the post author, as she attempts to instill language as a marker of cultural heritage in her young children.  And perhaps when they are older, they will recognize bilingualism as a gift that their mother gave.

OSHA reports from 2006 show a frightening correlation between deaths of construction workers and lack of English-speaking skills, especially for Hispanics and those born outside of the U.S.  The reports also show that those working non-union jobs experience a higher rate of fatality than those working for unions.  Anecdotal evidence of sacrificing safety measures for speed points to the need for enforcement of safety procedures and instruction for non-English speakers in their own language.  Learning English is a process that takes years, and while many of these construction workers may be moving towards fluency, this article shows the need for immediate attention to safety in workers’ native languages. 

Oscar Paredes, executive director of the Latin American Workers Project, said outreach and training by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and city agencies are ineffective because of the language barrier.

“The city government doesn’t have a lot of people who speak the language or that can offer the appropriate training,” he said.

Paredes said some workers ignore safety precautions, sometimes because they are apathetic, or sometimes because they are afraid to lose their job if they refuse to perform a dangerous task, such as scaling heights with no harnesses or guardrails.

“If you don’t go up, you lose the work,” he said.

No one doubts the importance of learning English for immigrant workers, but when their lives are at risk, the construction industry needs to meet them where they are language-wise. 

There is also a cultural issue at play, especially when workers come from countries where safety measure are lax or non-existent. 

Hiring managers and job-seekers alike are very aware of the addition of language skills in the list of required or preferred qualifications in job descriptions.  Being bilingual, most commonly in Spanish, is fast becoming a huge asset when looking for jobs.  This is true in a variety of professions and jobs: from police officers to customer service representatives to medical services. 

John Peoples is a managing partner at Global Lead Management Consulting, which focuses on enhancing workforce productivity with an emphasis on diversity. Being multilingual, he said, makes an employee more valuable in the workplace now more than ever before.

“For many organizations, it’s been part of the dialogue for more than a decade,” he said. “But in the past couple of years, they’ve gone from talk to implementing it.”

Global Lead works primarily with retail, health care and financial services companies. Such “direct-to-consumer” fields, including the hospitality industry, are where much of the need for bilingual employees exists.

From tourists to immigrants, even if they speak a functional amount of English, the people calling and coming into those offices are increasingly likely to speak another language better or more comfortably. That ease makes for more meaningful interactions and accurate problem-solving.

The article also makes the point that, although bilingualism is a skill to be marketed and capitalized upon, it is also a skill that needs to be honed.  It’s not enough to simply speak the language, but candidates must also either know or be able to learn the specialized vocabulary inherent to different fields.

TV Azteca, Mexico’s second largest TV network, plans to launch a 60-hour series of English classes to be broadcast on its U.S. affiliate stations. 

The televised classes, the first of their kind to be broadcast by a Mexican network in the United States, will offer cultural as well as language lessons. They will not be broadcast in Mexico or other countries in Latin America. The aim is to prepare immigrants in the United States for a host of situations ranging from taking their children to school to grocery shopping and going to the doctor.

“It just makes sense,” said Luis Echarte, chairman of Azteca America. “In order to survive and get better jobs, they have to learn basic English.”

While free and low-cost ESL classes are available in every urban area in the U.S., long wait lists, work schedules, and lack of child care prohibit many immigrants from taking advantage of this service.  TV Azteca tentatively plans to broadcast on Sunday mornings.

Of course, passively watching a TV program is not the most effective way to learn a language.  Hopefully this program will provide viewers with enough of a foundation that they are then motivated to work on their language skills in ways that truly develop language acquisition, such as by immersing themselves in situations where they must use English. 

Read the full article here.

The University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies, along with the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus, released a report today which will assist suburban municipalities in incorporating the swelling Latino population into the community. 

It is the culmination of nearly a year’s worth of round table discussions and combines the input of community leaders from nine Chicago suburbs experiencing the challenges of a swift demographic shift: overcrowded housing, a shortage of social services for immigrants and an influx of students who speak little English.

The report recommends more outreach to Latino immigrants who have not been exposed to housing ordinances in their homelands, and mediation services to help residents resolve conflicts, using interpreters if necessary.

Hartwig wants to continue the discussions and move beyond the “us versus them” mentality that often polarizes the immigration debate, he said.

As the Latino population shifts to the suburbs, those who can bridge the language barrier and serve as liasions to facilitate cross-cultural understanding and learning will be imperative to the integration of this new demographic.  The article highlights some of the challenges that come with adapting to an influx of people with different needs, and shows the importance of having culturally competent experts help facilitate the transition.

Young children are masters at learning quickly and through immersion, especially when it comes to picking up a second language.  Westchester County in NY recognizes this, and is not only attempting to prepare the county’s children to be bilingual adults, but is also using language instruction as a way to bring together a community divided by ethnicity and language barriers.  Anecdotal evidence from the new program which provides Spanish as a Second Language instruction to English-speaking children shows that it has begun to unify once splintered groups of students as well as increased trust between parents with different native languages:

In 2003, with increased emphasis on standardized tests exposing how poorly bilingual students were doing in English, Tarrytown did away with most bilingual classes. Tarrytown also found that bilingual students had a tendency to stick together, said Michele Milliam, principal of the Tappan Hill School.

Under the new regimen, where almost everyone studies two languages, teachers are noticing that Hispanic and white children are more likely to play together and that parents from different cultures are more willing to approach one another.

“It’s not as easy to harbor stereotypes when it’s their children your children are mixing with,” said Dr. Howard Smith, the superintendent.

Westchester County’s experience provides a very real example of the benefits of promoting bilingualism to give children immensely useful skills for their future and also to capitalize on the community’s cultural and linguistic diversity.

As the Spanish-speaking population of Mesa, AZ grows, the city’s police force struggles to adequately serve and communicate with the Latino community.  Mesa’s residents and officers both feel the frustration and fear that comes with not being able to communicate during criminal or emergency calls.  This article describes the tensions and difficulties city residents and officers face as Police Chief George Gascón explores ways to bridge the language barrier.

The language barrier threatens public safety by allowing criminals to escape before translators arrive on scene and by slowing down the time it takes to bring charges against lawbreakers.“Being able to provide good services to the citizens is the bottom line,” said Mesa Police Association president Fabian Cota. “The fact that officers can’t communicate with victims … kind of means they are receiving inferior service.”

And it’s not just the public that’s in danger.

The inability to communicate puts officers’ lives at risk, too.

Mesa police Chief George Gascón said he is exploring ways to increase the number of Spanish-speaking officers in the city, but budget constraints leave him with few options.

“We recognize it’s an urgent public safety need. Quite frankly we don’t have the luxury of saying, ‘Learn English,’” Gascón said.

“Sometimes communication is a two-way street. You need to have a mutual understanding and a mutual sensitivity.”