John, 

Immigrants run businesses, take their children to school, and drive to the grocery store like every other New Yorker. Yet, despite being integral members of our communities, they have unnecessary barriers to accessing government information or services that are essential and life-saving. 

To help remedy this ongoing neglect, we’re working to pass Language Access bill A7428B—it’s time for our government to ensure the well-being of all New York families. 

In March 2020, when the first case of COVID-19 in the United States was confirmed to be in New York, critical health information wasn’t distributed in languages accessible to everyone. This left many families vulnerable to the virus. Expanding language access can save lives—our state must equitably protect every New Yorker. 

From Long Island to Buffalo to Albany, New York State is vast and unique in its communities. This legislation will allow for regional offices of State agencies and departments to cover additional languages that are spoken in that region but aren’t covered by the state policy. For example, languages like Nepali and Burmese would be covered in Buffalo, and Ukrainian would now be covered in the North Country. Each region deserves the chance to serve its diverse populations in their preferred languages. 

While expansion of languages is important, which languages are covered and how those languages are selected is equally, if not more important. This bill would make it so that the languages are chosen based on the individuals who need access to services the most, ensuring that translated materials are available for people most likely to be needing them.

Theodore A. Moore
Vice President of Policy