It’s time to advocate for language accessibility! This week on Communicate Like You Give A Damn, host, Kim Clark is joined by Language Access Advocate and Founder/CEO of Equal Access Language Services, Carol Velandia as they embark on a journey to better understand the profound ways in which language shapes our world. This critical conversation highlights the importance of language access, specifically within the United States, along with irs profound impact on an individual’s overall well-being. They even explore the fundamental purpose of communication and a communicator’s role in managing the challenges faced when considering ethics, language bias, and even how children are involved in interpretation.

About The Guest:

Carol G. Velandia Pardo CHI, PMP, MBA, LMSW is a University of Maryland Graduate Professor, language access advocate, award winning curriculum developer and short film maker, and the founder and CEO of Equal Access Language Services. She Developed the Interprofessional Curriculum: Effective Inclusion through Language Access which will be taught to three different schools at the University of Maryland in Spring 2024. As a social worker, interpreter, academic, and entrepreneur, Carol’s mission is to make Language Access a priority for public and private services and expand the concepts of Cultural Competence and Diversity Equity and Inclusion by adding this critical concept as a key component. She is promoting a cultural shift that will drive the effective inclusion and outcomes improvement, as well as the equal access of Limited English proficient persons in public and private services, which in turn, will drive businesses and organizations growth and the improvement of our healthcare, justice, and education systems. She enjoys traveling, movies, connecting with people, and dancing flamenco!

Find Carol Here:

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About Kim:

Kim Clark (she/her) focuses her work on the communicator and content creator's role in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). She is the co-author of The Conscious Communicator: The fine art of not saying stupid sh*t, an Amazon #1 bestseller and the leading voice for DEI communications and social justice messaging for brands.

She speaks at conferences, writes custom workshops, writes inclusive communications guides, and consults with companies on all things related to diversity, equity, and inclusion communications. Kim is a member of the LGBTQ+ community, a cisgender woman, Native American (Muscogee Nation) and a mom of two kids with disabilities. These marginalized identities and the privileges that come with society seeing her as White motivate her daily for social change.

Communicate Like You Give A Damn Podcast

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Kim Clark: 00:00:00

Hey everybody, welcome back. I am so glad that

Kim Clark: 00:00:04

you're here for this episode of communicate like it give a damn.

Kim Clark: 00:00:09

Now we're really doubling down on language today with our

Kim Clark: 00:00:13

guest, Carol. Carol, why don't you introduce yourself and i If

Kim Clark: 00:00:17

you don't mind, I'd really like to go straight into it.

Carol Velandia: 00:00:20

Sure. Good afternoon. My name is Carol

Carol Velandia: 00:00:23

Ville. Andrea. I am a linguist, a social worker and an

Carol Velandia: 00:00:27

intrapreneur and also a flamenco dancer. And for the past almost

Carol Velandia: 00:00:32

10 years I have been working, I have been working on the topic

Carol Velandia: 00:00:35

of language access. That's what I am most passionate about. And

Carol Velandia: 00:00:39

I hope we talk a lot about that today.

Kim Clark: 00:00:42

Absolutely. And it was it was based on our

Kim Clark: 00:00:44

conversation that we had where I was listening and saying, oh my

Kim Clark: 00:00:48

gosh, more people need to understand language access and

Kim Clark: 00:00:51

the impact that language has on a person's well being is what

Kim Clark: 00:00:56

you're all about. You know, some people hire translation

Kim Clark: 00:01:00

services, etc, or even used like software in AI like Google

Kim Clark: 00:01:05

Translate, but there's a nuance a culture, nuance, there's the

Kim Clark: 00:01:10

access that can you know, mean, so much a difference between

Kim Clark: 00:01:15

night and day on an employee or citizens experience. And so the

Kim Clark: 00:01:19

more and more we got into that conversation, I said, we just

Kim Clark: 00:01:22

got to bring this conversation to this podcast. So thank you

Kim Clark: 00:01:25

for recording coming in from Spain, I believe you go back and

Kim Clark: 00:01:30

forth between the US and Spain.

Unknown: 00:01:32

Yes, that's right. I am a here for three months here in

Unknown: 00:01:37

Spain in the south of Spain in Granada. I am learning flamenco

Unknown: 00:01:42

dancing, which is another language. So I am very excited

Unknown: 00:01:46

about it.

Kim Clark: 00:01:49

And I am coming off of my lots and lots of travels.

Kim Clark: 00:01:54

And I've been doing so well in staying healthy and pounding

Kim Clark: 00:01:58

eCognition all the things in some way somehow this very last

Kim Clark: 00:02:03

trip that I'm having a break for six weeks before I travel again,

Kim Clark: 00:02:06

and I caught something so you get the lower registered voice.

Kim Clark: 00:02:11

So this smoky blues voice of Kevin Clark today. All right,

Kim Clark: 00:02:18

let's, yeah, you like that? Alright, let's go. So the first

Kim Clark: 00:02:23

question I have for you is, what is language access? You know,

Kim Clark: 00:02:28

help people understand how it differentiates for other other

Kim Clark: 00:02:31

things. And why is it important today in today's multicultural

Kim Clark: 00:02:36

and diverse societies?

Unknown: 00:02:39

Yeah, so language access simply means to provide

Unknown: 00:02:41

the same level of access to services that you provide to an

Unknown: 00:02:45

English speaker. When you're working with a non English

Unknown: 00:02:48

speaker. We probably don't hear about language based

Unknown: 00:02:51

discrimination. But we are discriminating against

Unknown: 00:02:54

multilingual communities every time we deny a service, simply

Unknown: 00:02:58

because they don't speak the dominant language. In our case

Unknown: 00:03:02

in the United States, that will be English. So in a diverse

Unknown: 00:03:05

society like ours, where we not only speak over 400 different

Unknown: 00:03:09

languages, we also have approximately 26 million people

Unknown: 00:03:13

that don't speak English at all. And they face worse outcomes

Unknown: 00:03:19

across healthcare, education, legal services, than the English

Unknown: 00:03:24

speaking population. And that is why it's very important that we

Unknown: 00:03:27

understand the concept of language taxes, and that we make

Unknown: 00:03:30

it relevant.

Kim Clark: 00:03:32

There's so much history with how we got to be

Kim Clark: 00:03:36

having this conversation when companies started deciding that

Kim Clark: 00:03:41

English would be the language of business as globalization

Kim Clark: 00:03:46

started to expand. And many countries started teaching

Kim Clark: 00:03:50

English as part of primary school or elementary school. And

Kim Clark: 00:03:56

so many people born and raised outside of the US have more than

Kim Clark: 00:04:01

one language and English is one of them. And then you look at

Kim Clark: 00:04:06

the US in particular, and other mainly English speaking

Kim Clark: 00:04:09

languages, and we are monolingual. And we are

Kim Clark: 00:04:13

expecting everybody else to speak English and that's, that's

Kim Clark: 00:04:17

a form of colonialism and, and all kinds of things. And so it's

Kim Clark: 00:04:21

an interesting topic for us as communicators, who are putting

Kim Clark: 00:04:27

out communications at a global level. And trying to get to the

Kim Clark: 00:04:34

point of communication, the point of communication for us as

Kim Clark: 00:04:37

communicators, Carol is connection. And this idea of

Kim Clark: 00:04:41

language access is so overlooked and under resourced, you know,

Kim Clark: 00:04:47

in, in my experience and in working with clients. So what

Kim Clark: 00:04:50

are some of the common challenges or barriers that

Kim Clark: 00:04:53

individuals face when seeking language access services, and

Kim Clark: 00:04:58

how can they be overcome

Unknown: 00:05:00

When we you mentioned, for example, at the beginning,

Unknown: 00:05:04

all these different technologies that we have, and all these

Unknown: 00:05:08

different mentalities that we have around language. So we have

Unknown: 00:05:12

a lot of resources in a way. But we actually need a change of

Unknown: 00:05:19

paradigm, because I think that's the main challenge. Because most

Unknown: 00:05:22

people in the US in the US have the mentality that we speak

Unknown: 00:05:27

English in the US, which is obviously true. But the problem

Unknown: 00:05:31

is that they also think that if you don't speak English, you are

Unknown: 00:05:36

not worthy of receiving the services that they offer. So we

Unknown: 00:05:41

don't have that a multilingual mentality in the US we think,

Unknown: 00:05:44

for example, that English is our official language when they, you

Unknown: 00:05:49

know, we don't have an official language in the US, a lot of

Unknown: 00:05:52

people don't know this. And also, the United States has

Unknown: 00:05:55

never been a multilingual country ever. Since the

Unknown: 00:05:59

beginning of our history, we were multilingual. So trying to

Unknown: 00:06:03

change that paradigm, not so much that we now believe that,

Unknown: 00:06:07

okay, we're a multilingual community. But what to do with

Unknown: 00:06:11

that is what's important. That's the challenge that we need to

Unknown: 00:06:16

address is how do we interact? How do we communicate with

Unknown: 00:06:22

people that don't speak English? Because as you said, the the

Unknown: 00:06:25

main point is connection. So how do we go about that? So in the

Unknown: 00:06:30

house is where where we find the biggest challenge that that

Unknown: 00:06:35

people have, because we actually have the resources, the laws,

Unknown: 00:06:38

and we're going to talk about that. But it's a change of

Unknown: 00:06:40

mentality what I think we need to be seeking and achieving.

Kim Clark: 00:06:45

I love that I love that it's a paradigm you're

Kim Clark: 00:06:48

absolutely right. And, and that's a part of some of us as

Kim Clark: 00:06:51

communicators, our bias, we just, you know, we haven't been

Kim Clark: 00:06:54

thinking about it from, you know, unless we're really,

Kim Clark: 00:06:58

really challenged and been getting some pushback from some

Kim Clark: 00:07:00

countries who are just like, this translation is, or you're

Kim Clark: 00:07:04

not providing, you know, access to us. You know, when I'm

Kim Clark: 00:07:07

working with Canadian clients, they always want to make sure

Kim Clark: 00:07:10

that French Canadian ism is included. So that was very, very

Kim Clark: 00:07:13

purposeful, but I'll go to other more global organizations. And

Kim Clark: 00:07:18

there won't be that request. You know, there isn't any kind of

Kim Clark: 00:07:22

function function. Like for example, just yesterday morning,

Kim Clark: 00:07:25

I did a talk for Europe. And there was many, many countries

Kim Clark: 00:07:31

that were in on that virtual workshop that I provided for the

Kim Clark: 00:07:34

client. And the client is based in Amsterdam. And there was no

Kim Clark: 00:07:40

conversation of any kind of translation services,

Kim Clark: 00:07:43

captioning, those kinds of things. The expectation was that

Kim Clark: 00:07:46

I speak English and they will receive it in English, there was

Kim Clark: 00:07:50

actually no conversation about it. And I know enough to not

Kim Clark: 00:07:55

talk too fast. You know, in my high school, French are my

Kim Clark: 00:08:00

college French and my high school Spanish when I hear those

Kim Clark: 00:08:03

languages spoken, you know, if they're slower, I can understand

Kim Clark: 00:08:07

more. And I've been given the feedback that as an English

Kim Clark: 00:08:10

speaker, when there's multiple languages, to just slow down a

Kim Clark: 00:08:14

beat, you know, not go so fast. So that's something that we can

Kim Clark: 00:08:17

think of as communicators as well, when there isn't the

Kim Clark: 00:08:21

support. But this in some situations in some industries,

Kim Clark: 00:08:25

when there isn't this language access, it's a matter of life or

Kim Clark: 00:08:29

death. In some situations, let's talk about health care and

Kim Clark: 00:08:32

education legal systems, in what ways can language access

Kim Clark: 00:08:36

services enhance inclusion and equality within these various

Kim Clark: 00:08:40

sectors.

Unknown: 00:08:42

For example, in the healthcare system,

Unknown: 00:08:45

communication, again, is the main diagnostic tool. So if we

Unknown: 00:08:50

are going to have a patient that doesn't speak English, and we

Unknown: 00:08:54

don't provide a language access in the way of our professional

Unknown: 00:08:58

interpreter, that person is more likely to suffer health related

Unknown: 00:09:03

consequences and therefore worse outcomes. In fact, there is a 4%

Unknown: 00:09:10

chance that they are non English speaker suffers severe temporary

Unknown: 00:09:15

harm if they don't have language access than when compared to an

Unknown: 00:09:18

English speaker. So that's one one big consequence. in the

Unknown: 00:09:23

legal field, for example, there is a large amount of wrongful

Unknown: 00:09:30

convictions to people that don't speak English simply because at

Unknown: 00:09:34

the moment of the interrogation, they were not provided with an

Unknown: 00:09:37

interpreter because and this is one of the challenges to going

Unknown: 00:09:41

back to your earlier question. People think that if you are

Unknown: 00:09:45

nodding your understanding, for example, or you speak three

Unknown: 00:09:50

words in English, you are understanding and that

Unknown: 00:09:53

therefore, they can release these a very complicated

Unknown: 00:09:58

questions. For example, in the case of a person Some being

Unknown: 00:10:00

interrogated. I mean, education, of course, the the, the way to

Unknown: 00:10:06

look at it is that parents need to be participating in the

Unknown: 00:10:10

children's education. So the children are going to learn the

Unknown: 00:10:13

language, they're going to learn English, the it is gonna take a

Unknown: 00:10:16

while and the tools for those children that don't speak

Unknown: 00:10:19

English, unnecessarily, but also for the parents so that they get

Unknown: 00:10:23

involved with their education, and then the outcomes of the

Unknown: 00:10:25

children are also better. And by the way, if I if I mentioned

Unknown: 00:10:29

this is another really big challenge is that we are using

Unknown: 00:10:34

children to do professional work as interpreters, right. And that

Unknown: 00:10:39

is one of the most ethical, the biggest ethical violations that

Unknown: 00:10:44

we do today is that we use children, nobody would think

Unknown: 00:10:48

that the US actually a Exploited Children, right, that's not a

Unknown: 00:10:55

conversation we even come across. But when you think about

Unknown: 00:10:58

employing a child, and by the way, there are 11 million

Unknown: 00:11:01

children that work today as interpreter, interpreters, when

Unknown: 00:11:05

we think about employing a child as an interpreted in in such a

Unknown: 00:11:08

complex environment like healthcare, for example, we're

Unknown: 00:11:11

giving them a big responsibility that they are not qualified to

Unknown: 00:11:16

do, we can possibly traumatize this child. So this is this is

Unknown: 00:11:21

something that we definitely have to keep in mind when when

Unknown: 00:11:24

we think about all the different places where language access is

Unknown: 00:11:28

key.

Kim Clark: 00:11:30

I really appreciate that you pointed that out,

Kim Clark: 00:11:33

because we just take it for granted. I don't think we're

Kim Clark: 00:11:36

really thoughtful. And in, in, in a lot of situations. I know

Kim Clark: 00:11:40

when I was getting divorced, there was the option of Spanish

Kim Clark: 00:11:45

speaking. And you know, anybody asked in the galley of, you

Kim Clark: 00:11:49

know, does anyone need Spanish, but it was only limited to

Kim Clark: 00:11:53

Spanish speaking, there wasn't an opportunity to have various

Kim Clark: 00:11:58

languages available. So I, I've seen it in that kind of legal

Kim Clark: 00:12:03

setting, but it's not nearly enough. And, and, you know, like

Kim Clark: 00:12:09

we were saying we were really depending on the wrong people to

Kim Clark: 00:12:12

do the job for us and need to be more thoughtful and strategic

Kim Clark: 00:12:16

and forward thinking about this. So what are some forward

Kim Clark: 00:12:19

thinking innovative approaches or technologies that have been

Kim Clark: 00:12:23

successful in improving language access for individuals with

Kim Clark: 00:12:27

limited English proficiency?

Unknown: 00:12:29

Well, there is a ton of technology today that allows you

Unknown: 00:12:33

to do you know, machine translation and to interpret,

Unknown: 00:12:40

for example, remotely, they there is artificial intelligence

Unknown: 00:12:45

that will help with that. But really what what I think is more

Unknown: 00:12:50

innovative is that we start recognizing, going back to the

Unknown: 00:12:54

basics and recognizing the profession of interpreting and

Unknown: 00:12:58

the profession of translating, because those tools that that we

Unknown: 00:13:02

have through AI and technology are not enough or are not

Unknown: 00:13:08

sufficient, unless there is a linguist behind it, because

Unknown: 00:13:11

there are all sorts of potential errors that can occur if we just

Unknown: 00:13:17

let the machine do that job. So there's a lot of innovation in

Unknown: 00:13:20

the language language field and I'm not a tech person to really

Unknown: 00:13:24

go into that. But suffice it to say that what what really is

Unknown: 00:13:28

innovative, innovative is how we approach this how do we use this

Unknown: 00:13:32

technology for the better many of those people that don't speak

Unknown: 00:13:36

English, right? For example, today, if you had if you were to

Unknown: 00:13:41

develop a really robust language access plan, you could offer

Unknown: 00:13:45

technically 24/7 access to interpret professional

Unknown: 00:13:48

interpretation services right, you could perhaps turn around a

Unknown: 00:13:53

translation faster than before a translation that has been

Unknown: 00:13:57

reviewed by a linguist right and why can we do it faster because

Unknown: 00:14:01

we can use methods to do it some to implement some automatic

Unknown: 00:14:08

optimization with translation for example. So the technology

Unknown: 00:14:12

is there the professionals are there is how do we connect this

Unknown: 00:14:16

and how we have that mind shift in terms of how we approach

Unknown: 00:14:20

these professionals and this technology successfully and

Unknown: 00:14:23

effectively.

Kim Clark: 00:14:25

You know, I've been doing a number of webinars

Kim Clark: 00:14:27

talking about AI and di communication so you know, the

Kim Clark: 00:14:32

the tax the lip, the visuals, the videos, but especially the

Kim Clark: 00:14:36

tax when you put something in like chat GPT for example,

Kim Clark: 00:14:40

you'll see the bias you'll see the sexism if you are skilled in

Kim Clark: 00:14:45

di communications and know what to look for. Some for some of

Kim Clark: 00:14:50

us, there can be an improvement of inclusive communications, but

Kim Clark: 00:14:53

for the most part, I think AI is really reflecting to us because

Kim Clark: 00:14:57

it's taking what's already out there. that that human element

Kim Clark: 00:15:02

is absolutely credible, you know, critical in looking

Kim Clark: 00:15:07

through this kind of language that's being spent, I think it's

Kim Clark: 00:15:09

a mirror of like crap. Is that how we're talking about that? Is

Kim Clark: 00:15:13

that what we're saying? And it's really missing the point. And we

Kim Clark: 00:15:16

should really take that reflection very seriously and

Kim Clark: 00:15:19

say, Wow, we need to teach these datasets and teach ourselves on

Kim Clark: 00:15:24

how to be more inclusive, to avoid, you know, the bias that

Kim Clark: 00:15:28

is inherent in these datasets that's in AI right now. And so

Kim Clark: 00:15:33

let me ask you about, let's just kind of level up and talk about

Kim Clark: 00:15:36

some legislation like where, what is that? Where is

Kim Clark: 00:15:40

legislation? And what role does it play in promoting language

Kim Clark: 00:15:43

access? And are you aware of any specific laws or policies that

Kim Clark: 00:15:47

have a significant impact?

Unknown: 00:15:49

Absolutely. And that's such an important question came

Unknown: 00:15:53

because we, we talk about the civil rights and advocacy and

Unknown: 00:15:58

all that is, especially in the diversity, equity, inclusion and

Unknown: 00:16:03

belonging space. And but we all know about, for example, how the

Unknown: 00:16:09

title six of the Civil Rights Act protect people that don't

Unknown: 00:16:12

speak English, it says that nobody should be discriminated

Unknown: 00:16:16

on the basis of race, sex, or national origin. And national

Unknown: 00:16:21

origin is a proxy for for language. So in any kind of

Unknown: 00:16:26

program that receives federal funding, they should have

Unknown: 00:16:31

language access a language access plan, because they should

Unknown: 00:16:35

not discriminate on the basis of national origin. And I think

Unknown: 00:16:39

more and more people are raising their awareness about

Unknown: 00:16:45

complaining when they are not receiving effective

Unknown: 00:16:48

communication or interpretation services or translators,

Unknown: 00:16:51

translation services. And they can call that discrimination

Unknown: 00:16:55

based on national origin. So title six is perhaps the biggest

Unknown: 00:16:59

piece of legislation that we have. But there is also

Unknown: 00:17:03

executive order 13166, that was signed by President Clinton in

Unknown: 00:17:08

the 2000s, which also talks about meaningful access. So it

Unknown: 00:17:13

tells organizations, again, that receive federal funding, how to

Unknown: 00:17:18

create this language access plan on how to approach a language

Unknown: 00:17:21

access plan. So for example, if you are a hospital and you live

Unknown: 00:17:25

in a community, where a lot of people from China or a lot of

Unknown: 00:17:30

speak Chinese speaking people live there, then a it is likely

Unknown: 00:17:35

that for you hospital, because you are providing a critical

Unknown: 00:17:38

service and you're the community that you serve a speaks Chinese

Unknown: 00:17:43

is likely that for you meaningful service means having

Unknown: 00:17:48

a interpreters on staff that are Chinese interpreters, or that

Unknown: 00:17:54

your documentation and signage is in Chinese, for example. So

Unknown: 00:18:00

that's what Executive Order helps with, it tells for

Unknown: 00:18:04

example, and the the responsibility is different

Unknown: 00:18:07

depending on the type of services that you provide. So if

Unknown: 00:18:09

you are a zoo, for example, yes, you receive federal funds, but

Unknown: 00:18:13

maybe your the service that you're providing is not as

Unknown: 00:18:16

critical as that of a hospital. So maybe for you meaningful

Unknown: 00:18:19

access means having all the brochures translated. So these

Unknown: 00:18:23

are two very important pieces of legislation, but there is also

Unknown: 00:18:26

some state legislation that address health care as well. And

Unknown: 00:18:32

there is one that is the class standards there is there is a

Unknown: 00:18:36

culturally and linguistically appropriate standards that are

Unknown: 00:18:41

specifically for health care, that tells you about how to

Unknown: 00:18:45

provide effective language access also, how to consider the

Unknown: 00:18:51

the proficiency of the professionals doing the language

Unknown: 00:18:56

axis, right because this is another issue is that people

Unknown: 00:18:59

tend to think they are fluent without ever having a taking a

Unknown: 00:19:06

test on their fluency on the other language and they are no

Unknown: 00:19:09

oh yeah, no, this this person understands because they are

Unknown: 00:19:11

nodding, as I said earlier, or Yeah, I speak enough French to

Unknown: 00:19:16

get by. And CLAS Standards is very specific about the says

Unknown: 00:19:20

like, you know, you need to assess the language skills of

Unknown: 00:19:24

the people serving the multilingual population. So

Unknown: 00:19:27

during these three pieces of legislation add key for for

Unknown: 00:19:34

people working in, in public services, but again, when we

Unknown: 00:19:40

talk about courts is a little different. And when we talk

Unknown: 00:19:43

about schools, schools is a little different but title so

Unknown: 00:19:46

title six is the like umbrella piece of legislation that we

Unknown: 00:19:49

have to keep in mind whenever we think about non discriminating

Unknown: 00:19:53

on the basis of language.

Kim Clark: 00:19:55

Okay, all right, let's get into the ethics of

Kim Clark: 00:19:59

law. language access. So what are these ethical considerations

Kim Clark: 00:20:04

that language access providers and organizations should be

Kim Clark: 00:20:08

mindful of when we're offering translation or interpretation

Kim Clark: 00:20:12

services? Like what are we? What are the questions that we ask

Kim Clark: 00:20:16

what do we need to look for? And what kind of feedback do we need

Kim Clark: 00:20:19

to hear to make sure that we are creating that connection through

Kim Clark: 00:20:23

language access,

Unknown: 00:20:24

the first thing really, is to stop using children and

Unknown: 00:20:27

family member to interpret for to make your job easier, right?

Unknown: 00:20:31

If you are, and I see this, over and over and over professional

Unknown: 00:20:36

lawyers telling me like, oh, I don't need to implement language

Unknown: 00:20:39

X is because the page, the person, the client will come

Unknown: 00:20:44

with their child and the child is bilingual. And that is their

Unknown: 00:20:47

language access plan. That is highly unethical. For the

Unknown: 00:20:50

reasons we explained before. They are minors, they this is a

Unknown: 00:20:53

professional word where, you know, we're basically under

Unknown: 00:20:56

employing this child. And also the the type of vocabulary that

Unknown: 00:21:01

they might be using could be quite complex. So that's the one

Unknown: 00:21:05

thing and I really will leave that as the main thing, because

Unknown: 00:21:08

there are several ethical consideration. But that, to me,

Unknown: 00:21:10

is the most important one. There was actually a film released a

Unknown: 00:21:14

few weeks ago, I posted in LinkedIn on children working as

Unknown: 00:21:18

interpreters. And I was baffled to know that, that these

Unknown: 00:21:23

practices are rampant. So I think that if we achieved that,

Unknown: 00:21:27

if we were able to remove children from the equation, we

Unknown: 00:21:30

are going to be in very good shape to even open up to all the

Unknown: 00:21:35

other ethical considerations that language axes have.

Kim Clark: 00:21:39

I'm also thinking about sometimes when I've been

Kim Clark: 00:21:42

in corporate environments, there's been a bias towards

Kim Clark: 00:21:46

people who don't have English as their first language, when it

Kim Clark: 00:21:49

comes to equating that with less intelligence, and other kinds of

Kim Clark: 00:21:54

bias that can show up when somebody comes from another

Kim Clark: 00:21:58

country. And they're a doctor in their country, and they come

Kim Clark: 00:22:00

here, but they're not able to be a doctor here, there's this

Kim Clark: 00:22:03

assumption, that they are that there's an you know, there's a

Kim Clark: 00:22:07

judgement, because they don't know English, but you put me in

Kim Clark: 00:22:11

the middle of, you know, Japan, I'm not going to be successful,

Kim Clark: 00:22:15

you know. And I may be, you know, judged for my intellectual

Kim Clark: 00:22:20

value, because I'm not able to speak the language there. You

Kim Clark: 00:22:24

know, there's, there's a lot of impact and bias that that plays

Kim Clark: 00:22:27

into it. Just people with accents. There's, there's

Kim Clark: 00:22:31

reports that I've shared in some of the trainings or workshops

Kim Clark: 00:22:34

when I work with clients, and is really talking about the the

Kim Clark: 00:22:37

bias of accents, and how many people I have met who have

Kim Clark: 00:22:41

forcibly removed their accent in the workplace in order to not

Kim Clark: 00:22:47

have harassment, jokes, discrimination, because it

Kim Clark: 00:22:51

becomes while there's the diversity, and there may be

Kim Clark: 00:22:55

accents, or somebody doesn't have English as their first

Kim Clark: 00:22:59

language, then it turns into a non inclusive situation. And

Kim Clark: 00:23:03

then it creates an inequitable situation where that person

Kim Clark: 00:23:07

isn't necessarily understood as well. So they don't get the

Kim Clark: 00:23:10

promotions, they don't get the new projects, they don't get the

Kim Clark: 00:23:14

kind of access and opportunities that somebody else does. So

Kim Clark: 00:23:18

that's something that we really have to consider as colleagues

Kim Clark: 00:23:21

when we're working with with teammates, and trying to find

Kim Clark: 00:23:25

some, some more common ground and meeting people where they

Kim Clark: 00:23:29

are. I often talk about inclusive communications. And

Kim Clark: 00:23:34

when we are using inclusive communications, which should be

Kim Clark: 00:23:37

standard in all of our communications, that we don't

Kim Clark: 00:23:41

use acronyms, for example, or colloquialisms, you know, within

Kim Clark: 00:23:46

the United States, that doesn't make sense to somebody that that

Kim Clark: 00:23:49

came from or, or is currently in South Korea. So we're leaving

Kim Clark: 00:23:54

people out, you know, and that's one part that as professional

Kim Clark: 00:23:57

communicators, we need to be thinking about as far as

Kim Clark: 00:24:00

language access. Now, let's talk about how language access

Kim Clark: 00:24:05

actually relates to economic growth and development, both

Kim Clark: 00:24:09

locally and globally, globally. So how does language access

Kim Clark: 00:24:14

services contribute?

Unknown: 00:24:17

Well, there is a plethora of answers to this. But

Unknown: 00:24:22

of course, it would facilitate international trade because we

Unknown: 00:24:25

have a globalized economy and businesses are going to engage

Unknown: 00:24:29

in cross border transactions and negotiations, where there is

Unknown: 00:24:32

language access provided, right and perhaps we don't have as

Unknown: 00:24:36

much as a problem when there is commerce in the middle because

Unknown: 00:24:41

they always think about communicating effectively and,

Unknown: 00:24:44

you know, interpreters that working in that field, they

Unknown: 00:24:49

don't have a shortage, shortage of work, right. So it's going to

Unknown: 00:24:53

be so we the changes that we need to to make there is just

Unknown: 00:24:58

that in our Local communities or in our smaller business, we

Unknown: 00:25:03

could expand our businesses and make them grow. If we were to

Unknown: 00:25:08

translate our websites, if we were to offer language taxes as

Unknown: 00:25:12

part of our daily routines, so we don't have to only accept or

Unknown: 00:25:18

receive clients from the US, we can actually have clients from

Unknown: 00:25:21

all over the world. And that speaking all sorts of languages.

Unknown: 00:25:25

I think I've mentioned this story to you in a past

Unknown: 00:25:28

conversation about how this lady told me like, you know, what, if

Unknown: 00:25:33

somebody is going to come to my shop, they need to speak

Unknown: 00:25:35

English? And I say, Well, are you sure about that? Because

Unknown: 00:25:40

Because your work might require that a at some point you you

Unknown: 00:25:44

have language that you that you bridge the gap in the language

Unknown: 00:25:49

and say not impossible, I don't think I don't think that's ever

Unknown: 00:25:52

going to happen, because I hire people, that managers for for

Unknown: 00:25:57

large companies and all that. So I asked you, so if a company

Unknown: 00:26:00

from Spain, came to you and ask you, okay, you are really good

Unknown: 00:26:06

about hiring the right talent, I need you to hire talent in

Unknown: 00:26:10

Spain. So you couldn't say yes, because you don't have, you

Unknown: 00:26:14

haven't planned for that. So you see what I mean, you can you can

Unknown: 00:26:18

open yourself to a lot more opportunities if you open the

Unknown: 00:26:23

language access speaker in a way. So you can also attract

Unknown: 00:26:27

foreign investment. Enhance? Well, if you, for example, have

Unknown: 00:26:33

tourism company, if you have language access, for example, we

Unknown: 00:26:37

actually have clients that in the tourism industry, that

Unknown: 00:26:41

connect to our 24/7 services, because they want to attract

Unknown: 00:26:46

people that not only speak English, but to speak a bunch of

Unknown: 00:26:50

languages. So there are many, many ways to expand and grow

Unknown: 00:26:54

economically with successful language access plan.

Kim Clark: 00:26:58

Carol, I was working with a client who had a similar

Kim Clark: 00:27:01

situation, they're trying to attract more diverse talent or

Kim Clark: 00:27:04

very being very intentional about that. And they realized

Kim Clark: 00:27:07

that language was a barrier to attracting talent that they

Kim Clark: 00:27:13

needed and wanted, for example, they, they were starting to just

Kim Clark: 00:27:21

do straight translation of their communications. They weren't

Kim Clark: 00:27:24

taking into account the cultural nuance. They weren't taking into

Kim Clark: 00:27:28

account context. And they weren't understanding at first

Kim Clark: 00:27:34

that it's not a straight translation from English to

Kim Clark: 00:27:37

whatever. Let's let's, let's go back to South Korea. So a Korean

Kim Clark: 00:27:43

language that there is not as it's not a one to one, you know,

Kim Clark: 00:27:47

straight translation, there has to be nuanced. There has to be

Kim Clark: 00:27:50

context, for example, and it doesn't even have to be for

Kim Clark: 00:27:53

employees who are located in other countries, it could be

Kim Clark: 00:27:56

people who have come from those countries to the US, that are

Kim Clark: 00:27:59

now a part of your employee base. And they, they they don't

Kim Clark: 00:28:03

understand they don't know, in this particular example, it was

Kim Clark: 00:28:07

a client who was sharing health benefits, and it was about open

Kim Clark: 00:28:11

enrollment and how what they what they didn't take into

Kim Clark: 00:28:14

account is that they don't actually there's a part of their

Kim Clark: 00:28:17

population that doesn't understand how health care works

Kim Clark: 00:28:21

in the United States. It's different, you know, in the

Kim Clark: 00:28:23

country, their their country of origin. And so there's so just

Kim Clark: 00:28:28

straight saying, Okay, here's open enrollment, and here's

Kim Clark: 00:28:30

what's going on and communicating that was it just,

Kim Clark: 00:28:35

it really harmed, you know, parts of their employee

Kim Clark: 00:28:39

population that didn't understand the context, and the

Kim Clark: 00:28:45

nuance of an understanding the cultural, so there needs to be

Kim Clark: 00:28:48

that human element, there needs to be that kind of level of

Kim Clark: 00:28:51

getting, keeping in mind that the objective of communications

Kim Clark: 00:28:54

is connection, and what will that take, and it's not always

Kim Clark: 00:28:57

just the translation, but that, you know, to your point can

Kim Clark: 00:29:01

bring in more of a diverse talent pool if we are very

Kim Clark: 00:29:05

thoughtful and strategic and resource language access

Kim Clark: 00:29:09

adequately. So I've got a couple more questions for you. What

Kim Clark: 00:29:13

steps can individuals and communities and companies and

Kim Clark: 00:29:16

organizations take to promote awareness and support for

Kim Clark: 00:29:20

language access initiatives?

Unknown: 00:29:23

Well, before before, I just wanted to comment on

Unknown: 00:29:27

something that you said that I think is very, very, very

Unknown: 00:29:30

important, and that is the human element for connection. You will

Unknown: 00:29:35

never replace humans when it comes to language, no matter how

Unknown: 00:29:38

advanced the large, large language models are. I work in

Unknown: 00:29:44

this industry and that that's the constant fear and for over

Unknown: 00:29:47

30 years, we have seen that technology AI helps us advance

Unknown: 00:29:52

and have more of translation and interpretation. But it's not

Unknown: 00:29:56

replacing humans I don't think that's ever going to happen is

Unknown: 00:30:00

Gonna perhaps make it more productive, etc. Now answering

Unknown: 00:30:03

to your questions, the steps that individuals, communities

Unknown: 00:30:07

and institutions can take to promote awareness. The first is

Unknown: 00:30:11

educate, and advocate, I think raising awareness about the

Unknown: 00:30:15

importance of language access, it's key, there are well, there

Unknown: 00:30:19

is a training, for example, that I offer, just changing the level

Unknown: 00:30:24

of consciousness that you have around language access. So this

Unknown: 00:30:27

educational piece is key. Then collaborating with a language

Unknown: 00:30:33

services providers, have them sort of as one main provider

Unknown: 00:30:40

that you have, right? If you're a company, and you want to make

Unknown: 00:30:43

sure that you are actually accessible and inclusive, and

Unknown: 00:30:48

you have to support diversity, equity and inclusion policies,

Unknown: 00:30:51

but to the people that you serve, then they create a

Unknown: 00:30:54

partnership with a language services provider. I think those

Unknown: 00:30:59

two are a and then create policies internally. Okay, what

Unknown: 00:31:03

do we do when the population that doesn't speak English,

Unknown: 00:31:07

approach our business? Because I think a lot of people or or

Unknown: 00:31:10

businesses don't even have this question, or they dismiss the

Unknown: 00:31:14

few times that people have approached them. And they don't

Unknown: 00:31:17

speak English. They're like, I don't know, because I don't have

Unknown: 00:31:20

enough of it. So create a language access policy internal,

Unknown: 00:31:24

internally to you, I think those are key elements.

Kim Clark: 00:31:27

Yeah, that's an excellent point. And as a

Kim Clark: 00:31:30

reminder, you don't have to be a global organization to have

Kim Clark: 00:31:33

these language access policies. So there are trades that attract

Kim Clark: 00:31:39

multilingual folks, and they could be domestic based, they

Kim Clark: 00:31:42

could be US based, I should say. And so you know, so it's just

Kim Clark: 00:31:47

look at your employee population, and get it get a

Kim Clark: 00:31:50

demographic understanding and a psychographic understanding of

Kim Clark: 00:31:54

what languages are spoken there. And you got to resource that in

Kim Clark: 00:31:58

I love I love, you know, the the recommendation, you got to put a

Kim Clark: 00:32:02

language access policy in place. And so when we're working on

Kim Clark: 00:32:05

diversity, equity inclusion, whether we are, you know, US

Kim Clark: 00:32:09

based or in English, primarily based country, we don't have to

Kim Clark: 00:32:16

be globalized in order to, you know, to have this policy in

Kim Clark: 00:32:19

place when you're a global organization 1,000% You need to

Kim Clark: 00:32:22

have this policy and policies get funded. So I think it's that

Kim Clark: 00:32:27

is such a huge point. And that brings us home to the question

Kim Clark: 00:32:31

that I asked every guest What does communicating like a give a

Kim Clark: 00:32:36

damn, sound like look like feel like when come when it when

Kim Clark: 00:32:41

we're talking about language access, I think this is kind of

Kim Clark: 00:32:44

a homerun for you.

Unknown: 00:32:47

Well, if you are having any trouble understanding

Unknown: 00:32:50

yourself, because required remember that a and I have this

Unknown: 00:32:54

tendency to speak Spanish. Remember that language access is

Unknown: 00:32:56

not only so that they access you, but that you access them.

Unknown: 00:33:00

So if you really want to communicate like Eva, then

Unknown: 00:33:03

remember your part of the equation as well. So if you are

Unknown: 00:33:05

not understanding, write, be humble and request an

Unknown: 00:33:09

interpreter yourself for your own sake. And that way, you

Unknown: 00:33:13

don't have to put the onus on the person that doesn't speak

Unknown: 00:33:15

English, but perhaps they speak some English, but you prefer to

Unknown: 00:33:18

speak in a language they can understand. And you also want to

Unknown: 00:33:21

understand what they're trying to communicate. So get an

Unknown: 00:33:23

interpreter for yourself, change little little points of your

Unknown: 00:33:29

thinking to really expand it, I think. So. If you want to

Unknown: 00:33:33

communicate like you've ever done, consider yourself part of

Unknown: 00:33:36

the equation, get an interpreter for yourself as well, when you

Unknown: 00:33:39

need it.

Kim Clark: 00:33:40

Language Access is core to diversity, equity and

Kim Clark: 00:33:43

inclusion communications. I can't stress that enough. So

Kim Clark: 00:33:47

Carol, what is your company do? What kind of services do you

Kim Clark: 00:33:50

offer? And how can people find you follow you, etc.

Unknown: 00:33:54

Thank you, Kim. We provide a broad range of

Unknown: 00:33:58

language services, including interpretation in over 200

Unknown: 00:34:02

languages, remote and in person, for conferences and for

Unknown: 00:34:06

healthcare appointments also for the legal appointments. And we

Unknown: 00:34:12

also provide translation of documents in over 200 languages,

Unknown: 00:34:15

we do transcreation, which is something very interesting you

Unknown: 00:34:19

you for example, write a story a children's story that you want

Unknown: 00:34:23

to convey in other countries with their cultural nuances, so

Unknown: 00:34:26

somebody has to recreate it in that culture. And finally, I

Unknown: 00:34:30

provide training to companies on language access companies that

Unknown: 00:34:36

want to expand their knowledge in diversity, equity and

Unknown: 00:34:39

inclusion. Hire me to train their their employees on

Unknown: 00:34:44

language access specifically, and they can find me in www dot

Unknown: 00:34:50

equal access language. services.com is a nice name

Unknown: 00:34:54

because we are we're all about equal access. Language Services

Unknown: 00:34:59

is a long name by This it defines what we do. And, yes, we

Unknown: 00:35:04

look forward to having people connecting and download our free

Unknown: 00:35:08

resources. We have a ton of resources for free like podcast

Unknown: 00:35:12

with information on the laws and regulations, and also written

Unknown: 00:35:16

material on that that they can simply download from our

Unknown: 00:35:19

website.

Kim Clark: 00:35:20

Excellent. Carol, thank you for providing this

Kim Clark: 00:35:23

service. And thank you for teaching us communicators what

Kim Clark: 00:35:27

we need to be doing and prioritizing language access as

Kim Clark: 00:35:30

part of our dei work. Thank you so much

Unknown: 00:35:33

for having me. I am really excited that we're

Unknown: 00:35:36

working together and yes, good luck with everything.

Kim Clark: 00:35:40

All right. Thank you, everybody. We'll see you next

Kim Clark: 00:35:42

time.