California: Language Access

Overview
Despite the passage 30 years ago of the Dymally-Alatorre Bilingual Services Act, which requires state agencies to provide bilingual services when 5% or more of its clients speak a language other than English, insufficient and inadequate services have been provided to the limited-English-proficient community. Based on an audit by the State Personnel Board in 1999, only two out of ten agencies knew of this requirement, and only one agency actually implemented the Dymally-Alatorre Act.

Due to this, many Latinos have been denied services to which they are entitled or have been provided with inadequate services. A recent study found that the use of family members or untrained bilingual nurses to communicate health information resulted in critical and life-threatening consequences that included wrong instructions on dosage intake and length of period on medication, and not including information about patients’ drug allergies or medical history.

California is a diverse, multicultural state, and state agencies must be accessible and provide quality services to the limited-English-proficient community.

NCLR Position
NCLR continues to work with health, labor, immigrant, and civil rights groups and other advocates to ensure that adequate bilingual services are made accessible to the Latino and immigrant communities and assists in monitoring and enforcing the implementation of enacted legislation that will improve services to the limited-English-proficient community.

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