SPOKANE, Wash. — As the City of Spokane continues to grow, so do its multilingual populations.
The city is hoping to pass an ordinance that would help embrace this growth by hiring more bilingual and multilingual speakers through nontraditional recruitment.
The ordinance would focus on increasing accessibility for people who speak different languages by having multilingual city employees available as translators for things like city council meetings and city documents.
“The goal is, if someone comes to City Hall and wants to pay their parking ticket or water bill, and if they speak another language, to have a dashboard, city-wide. If you know someone needs help translating, they can go into that dashboard and request a person come in and assist,” said Councilmember Lili Navarrete.
The city has already seen the need for this type of service.
“Last week, we received a request from the police department asking if we could help translate Miranda cards into Spanish,” said Councilmember Navarrete.
Latinos en Spokane, a nonprofit organization that provides services to Spokane’s Latino community, said it’s the simple, everyday information people need translated.
“Providing information in their language, it’s just really important so there’s no disadvantage to them,” said Griselda Orduno, Latinos en Spokane’s Youth and Culture Specialist.
The organization said people have expressed interest in participating more in local government, if only it was more accessible.
“With the legislative session coming up, a lot of the community is saying they want to take part. They are asking, ‘Can we do that in Spanish?’ and it should be a possibility,” said Jorge Guerrero, Immigration Policy and Climate Justice Organizer for Latinos en Spokane.
The city said it plans to recruit translators for multiple languages including, Spanish, Russian, Ukrainian and Vietnamese.
If passed, City Council is discussing holding workshops and tabling as ways to encourage people to apply for the positions.
City Council will vote on the ordinance on January 27.
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