Californians speak more than 200 languages. Not everybody gets the COVID facts they need
Ivy Zhou, a single mother of two children who speaks limited English, struggled to find COVID-related information in her native language after she was furloughed last March.
Now the San Francisco resident relies on a Chinese television station and social media to get information about unemployment relief, food pantries and how to protect her family from the coronavirus.
“It’s extremely frustrating, but also unfair, because if you don’t know English then you’re not able to receive this support,” Zhou, 44, said in Cantonese through a translator.
With over 200 languages and dialects spoken across the state, California is one of the most linguistically diverse regions in the world and home to nearly 11 million foreign-born immigrants.
But nearly a year into the pandemic, that distinction continues to complicate attempts by state officials to disseminate critical information to all Californians. So far, the state provides materials in 18 languages and 10 indigenous dialects spoken in Latin America.
Community activists say some of those messages, which aim to enforce mask-wearing and social distancing guidelines, are poorly translated. Multiple community groups say they need more contact tracers who speak languages like Punjabi and Hmong. Access to computers is also an issue for getting unemployment benefits or appointments for vaccines.
“We are failing our most vulnerable, most central, most important communities,” said Veena Dubal, a law professor at UC Hastings. “It is so upsetting and troubling to watch a state like California not reach these communities during this public health emergency.”
Translation issues
When a Sacramento Bee reporter looked through the state’s coronavirus website this month, he found that links through the state’s Korean-translated page did not lead to the correct destinations. The “Will schools reopen?” link, for example, led to the “Get financial help” section.
Annette Wong, director of programs for Chinese for Affirmative Action, said for many Chinese Americans, online information surrounding state and local COVID-19 guidelines have remained inaccessible due to poor translation or digital barriers.
“A lot of times what we’ve seen is that … agencies use Google Translate just to have something available but oftentimes those things can be mistranslated or incomprehensible,” she said.
Translating COVID-19 information to Hmong proves to be a challenge because its translations can vary from person to person and multiple revisions are required, said George Yang, COVID-19 program lead of the Hmong Youth and Parents United.
He said many Hmong Americans in Sacramento get their information about the virus from family members, and their knowledge can be limited.
When Yang helped with the organization’s contact-tracing efforts, he was often asked by community members how COVID-19 affects people and whether there’s a cure for it. Literacy is also an issue. In the Hmong community, for example, some of those fluent in speaking the language don’t necessarily know how to read it.
“Not a lot of people know about the vaccine even existing,” he said.
Naindeep Singh, executive director of the Jakara Movement, said he hears complaints from the Punjabi community that “translation and materials coming from state agencies is really lacking” regarding COVID-19 precautions and how to access unemployment benefits.
Singh estimates that California is home to more than 300,000 Punjabi residents, most of whom reside in the Central Valley.
“The state has not done its due diligence to do in-language support in many of California’s languages,” Singh said. “I think (the state) is trying to develop that capacity, but it has not done enough.”
Efforts by state officials
As COVID-19 emerged early last year, state officials knew how necessary it would be to reach Californians about the disease in multiple languages.
Prior to the pandemic, The California Complete Count - Census 2020 Office identified the state’s most spoken languages under its Language and Communication Access Plan. They are English, Spanish, Chinese (including Cantonese and Mandarin), Vietnamese, Tagalog (including Filipino), Korean, Armenian, Farsi, Arabic, Russian, Japanese, Punjabi and Khmer.
“From a statewide perspective we have prioritized English, Spanish, Chinese (traditional and simplified), Tagalog, Korean, Arabic, Vietnamese, but it has also been important to consider regional context and especially hard to reach communities, like indigenous populations,” Daniel Lopez, press secretary to Gov. Gavin Newsom, said in an emailed statement.
“But not every ad or piece of collateral needs to be developed in every language, so we’re also exploring which platforms resonate most in the various languages spoken in California.”
As the disease progressed, data showed that immigrant and minority communities were disproportionately affected by COVID-19 infections and deaths.
When Newsom announced the state’s “Vaccinate All 58” campaign in December, the state aimed to promote what it said was a fair and equitable roll-out of the shots.
The California Department of Public Health in mid-February began translating its vaccine appointment website “My Turn” into six languages besides English and Spanish.
Californians without access to the internet can make appointments through a dedicated hotline (833-422-4255). While the hotline’s operators speak English and Spanish, an additional 254 languages are available through a “third party translator,” according to the California Department of Public Health.
The state’s vaccine campaign includes funding efforts to provide COVID-related information through ethnic media efforts and conducting targeted outreach and engagement with community-based organizations, California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said during a February press conference.
Ghaly said the state is using ethnic media across the state because “we don’t always have material and education, materials in particular, in-language.” That includes providing “live reads,” or radio scripts, that have aired on 40 different ethnic media outlets in 18 different languages.
Barriers to access
As the pandemic worsened, community groups said, it also became clear that the state did not have enough contact tracers who spoke languages other than English or Spanish. Contact tracers work to prevent spread of a disease by identifying and notifying those who come in contact with infected individuals.
To fill those gaps, the Jakara Movement partnered with Fresno County’s COVID-19 Equity Project to reach Punjabi communities in the Central Valley.
The lack of Hmong contact tracers in Sacramento prompted Rachel Rios, executive director of the Latino health organization, La Familia Counseling Center, to train and hire three Hmong contact tracers last year.
“While we are trying to advocate for the Latino community, because we work in such a diverse community, we have to advocate for them as well,” she said. “Our neighbors, you know, speak Farsi or Arabic or Hmong, and we felt like we needed to serve everybody.”
Computer access is also an issue when it comes to filing for unemployment benefits or scheduling vaccine appointments online.
“When we think about immigrants and immigrant communities in rural areas, I think the state might not be fully considering the reality that many people do not have good digital access, don’t have smartphones, don’t have computers, don’t have internet access,” Dubal said.
Santosh Seeram-Santana, legislative director for Chinese for Affirmative Action, said it’s common for Chinese Californians with limited English skills to turn to their underage or adult children, local organizations or unqualified “unscrupulous actors” who pose as lawyers, for help.
In terms of language access, Seeram-Santana said, “There is no one-size-fits-all approach, and in a state as diverse as California, you need a multi-pronged approach,” she said.
State-community partnerships
In his 2020-21 state budget plan, Newsom said the state has set aside $62.5 million for efforts to inform vulnerable and hard-to-reach Californians.
But immigrant advocates say the state also needs to forge deeper relationships with community-based organizations that are on the ground in communities.
“The state really has taken a position to want to champion equity,” said Joel Jenkins, a senior community advocacy coordinator for the California Pan-Ethnic Health Network. “But as of yet, we’re still looking for a better pathway to really connect to these local organizations that are making things happen in other language groups.”
It’s also vital for public officials to communicate with immigrant communities to help them overcome the “chilling effect” left by the Trump-era public charge rule that has dissuaded many from seeking public benefits in fear that it will impact their pathway to citizenship, Jenkins said.
Jenkins points to the Mixteco Indigena Community Organizing Project, a Central Coast nonprofit that serves Mixtec and indigenous communities, as an example of a local organization that has fostered a close partnership with state officials.
“If the state is really able to strengthen those partnerships, then I think that would create a lot more tangible solutions,” Jenkins said.
Wong said the state can’t move forward from the pandemic unless all Californians receive the same information about the critical steps necessary to restore normalcy.
“COVID has really highlighted how key language access is,” she said, “and how much of a lifeline it is for folks who are needing to access resources (and) information that can be life-sustaining and potentially life-saving.”
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Jeong Park of The Sacramento Bee Capitol Bureau contributed to this report.
