http://www.dailynewstribune.com/localRe ... leid=60709

Bridging the language barrier
By Galen Moore / Daily News Staff
Thursday, August 25, 2005

WALTHAM -- While the city has several Spanish-speaking clerks and officers to help new immigrants adjust to life in America and get the services they need, advocates say they wish more could be done.

In some city offices, business is transacted in Spanish on a daily basis.

Spanish-speaking employees in the city clerk's office and the Police Department say their skills are called upon frequently by Waltham's sizable Spanish-speaking community. But an even larger number of Waltham residents may be avoiding needed city services entirely, because of language barriers.

Ivonne Guevara de Fong, a bilingual employee hired last October in the city clerk's office, said few non-English speakers came in at first.

"A lot of people don't know I am here," she said. But as word has spread, more and more people are braving the office alone to obtain birth certificates and other official documents. Without a Spanish speaker available, many immigrants are too intimidated to seek the services they need in City Hall, Guevara de Fong said.

Those who appear in the clerk's office may represent the tip of the iceberg. More than 5,000 residents (5,031) identified themselves as Latino in the 2000 census -- 8.5 percent of the local population. Many avoid City Hall, going instead to a market on Moody Street called La Chapincita, owner Braulio Mazariegos said. Mazariegos said he often helps handle excise tax and utility bills for non-English-speaking customers.

"They come in with the bill, and they don't know what it is," he said, standing in front of a wall of phone cards for calling Latin American countries. "I explain it to them, and give them a money order."

Many non-English speakers do not have bank accounts, Mazariegos said, but that is changing as banks hire Spanish-speaking employees. He said banks have recognized the area's numerous Spanish-speakers are potential customers.

Until Guevara de Fong's hire, clerk's office employees struggled to help non-English speakers, City Clerk Russ Malone said. They often called downstairs for help from a Spanish-speaking employee in the treasurer's office, he said. Seldom did the language barrier stymie employees completely, he said.

"I don't think the odds are there's going to be a total language barrier," Malone said. Most people have mastered at least the few words required to get what they need -- phrases like "birth certificate" or "marriage license." "What used to happen was there'd be a 14- or 15-year-old to translate for the parents," he said.

Police are bilingual

Patrolman Cesar Brache, a Dominican native sworn into the Waltham Police force this year, said it is common for Spanish-speaking immigrants to help each other in this way.

"The Spanish community is very tight," he said. "We look out for each other. Sometimes a family member who knows a little English can help."

Still, Brache said he works with people who don't speak English at all "on a daily basis." Brache works in sector 3, in the northern half of Waltham. But he is frequently called to the South Side, where at least one fifth of Waltham's Latino citizens live, according to the census.

"It could be anything," he said, "from a domestic, to someone's car got towed."

Need still there

According to Gabriela Canepa, executive director of Breaking Barriers, a locally based organization providing services for Spanish-speaking women, the clerk's office and the police have made a good beginning, but improvements could be made.

"I wish that other departments will have bilingual people," Canepa said. She said the city lacks bilingual health and building inspectors. Immigrants who do not speak English often don't know they have the right to complain to government authorities about sub-standard rental units.

But Health Department Director Walter Sweder said the department has hired bilingual inspectors in the past. None are working now, he said, but more important than bilingual inspectors is educational outreach for the immigrant community, he said.

"A lot of people come from countries where the government is not very friendly," he said. As a result, many immigrants wouldn't think to file a complaint with his department. His office is largely reactive, he said. If they receive a complaint, "We will come out and inspect."

Transportation Director Frank Ching has suggested that the city keep a directory of bilingual employees who are willing to be on-call to translate. "I think they would find a lot," he said.

Personnel Director Brenda Capello said she didn't know exactly how many bilingual employees the city has offhand, but several Building Department custodians speak Haitian Creole, she said.

Police Chief Edward Drew identified people from Haiti as belonging to the city's third-largest ethnic group, behind white and Latino. He said the department has one Creole-speaking officer.

Mayor Jeannette McCarthy said there is a limit to how much bilingual service the city can provide. After a certain point, residents must learn English, she said.

"I think we do more than any surrounding community," McCarthy said. In addition to bilingual city employees, City Hall provides Community Development Block Grants to assist local organizations like Breaking Barriers, she said.

The Personnel Department is currently working on a job description for a city position that will coordinate services to the city's rapidly growing immigrant community, in order to "identify problems early on," McCarthy said.

But Canepa, the Breaking Barriers director, said many immigrants have a hard time learning English at first, while holding down as many as three jobs at a time. Society will suffer if the large number of recent immigrants have to wait before they can participate fully, she said.

"Their lives are so complicated that their learning is going to take longer than a person who has means," Canepa said. In the meantime, "How can you overlook them?"