Ana Trusty: County needs unified plan to help overcome language barriers
By Ana Trusty
Spokane County is in dire need of a Language Access Plan. As it stands today, each public-facing department has to develop their own plan to provide language services to community members with limited English proficiency . This strategy misuses resources and time as it creates inefficiencies that stem from a lack of cultural understanding and fails to address the community’s needs.
While working as an advocate for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault at MiA Mujeres in Action, I learned that those that we provide support to have similar experiences to their white counterparts yet are often unable to access county agencies because of a language barrier.
For instance, when we look at the cases for most survivors of domestic violence, we can find commonalities in the tactics used by the partner that is causing harm. One of these is the use of isolating practices. A person causing harm will do anything to convince their partner that their family or friends are damaging their relationship or move their nuclear family away from support systems. This rupture gives the person causing harm an open stage to continue to victimize their partner without witness accountability. When we talk about immigrant survivors of abuse, we see this tactic compounded by the survivors’ lack of access to our county resources. This barrier makes survivors even more vulnerable and gives more power and control to their partners, continuing the cycle of abuse.
MiA advocates are serving as a bridge for the survivors we serve and our county services. As we serve the community, we also realize there are many others needing to access to services and not reaching out because of fear, lack of knowledge and trust in our systems.
Our Spokane Community’s demographic landscape has changed dramatically as we have welcomed refugees from Ukraine and Afghanistan. Spokane is also one of the three major resettlement locations for our Marshallese communities, and Latinx workers from so many Central and South American countries call Spokane home. As our community grows we see the many benefits of having a diverse population; new services and resources are created, new restaurants are opened, innovative contributions to Spokane’s arts and culture scene attract more tourism, and our economy blooms. Everyone benefits.
As we welcome new immigrants to our neighborhoods it’s important to provide them with opportunities to participate in the American dream that many of our ancestors imagined when they too were immigrants to this country.
County services range from licensing an automobile, getting marriage licenses, and paying taxes on a home, to reporting a crime, calling the fire department, and filing protection orders at the court, to name a few. These departments are obligated to have a language access plan based on two federal laws and two state laws that establish language as a discriminating factor for providing services paid for by federal funds.
Having a centralized language access plan that facilitates signage, interpretation services, cultural awareness training and training on how to access language services would help save the county money and time in the long run. Hiring staff that reflects our diverse community and providing language pay to those with the skills to communicate effectively with folks in their native language would increase the trust amongst our communities and the agencies that were created for the people. We the people. All the people.
Ana Trusty moved to Spokane in 2011 along with her 9-month-old baby. She started as a volunteer advocate for MiA Mujeres in Action in 2019 and now is the communications director. She enjoys working with and for the Latinx community by elevating their voice and experience in Spokane.