The Expansion of America's LEP Community

By Laura Buck, Customer Service Associate
Schreiber Translations, Inc.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 had monumental implications for the United States. By mandating that "no person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance," ethnic minorities were guaranteed access to virtually every government service in the country. [1]

Now, nearly forty years later, many U.S. residents have never gained full access to those very programs referred to in the Civil Rights Act.  It may be due to this discrepancy that more than 20 million people in the United States report that they speak, read, write, or understand English less than "very well."[2]  Although this population with limited English proficiency (LEP) constitutes a significant portion of the United States, language barriers have the potential to prevent these individuals from fully participating in American society.  And because limited English proficiency is oftentimes related to a person's national origin, failure to make government programs available to non-English speaking groups is, in fact, a violation of the Act.

In 2000, President Bill Clinton addressed this rapidly growing issue with Executive Order 13166, which explicitly states that "each Federal agency shall examine the services it provides and develop and implement a system by which LEP persons can meaningfully access those services ... each Federal agency shall also work to ensure that recipients of Federal financial assistance provide meaningful access to their LEP applicants and beneficiaries."[3] Assistant Attorney General from the Civil Rights Division Wan J. Kim stressed the importance of such a provision this spring at the Limited English Proficiency Conference: "good communication ... is critical to emergency response, to education, to providing housing and social services, to food and nutritional services, and to collecting data.  It is critical to implementing community responses and environmental concerns, to keeping our transportation system safe and accessible, and to ensuring the workers are safe and fairly treated."[3]

As federal agencies have worked to make their programs more accessible, governments on the state level have followed suit.  Maryland's State Government Article §§10-1101-10-1104 and Washington, D.C.'s Language Act of 2004 both mandate that State or District funded entities that offer public services ensure that these services be available to LEP populations as well.  In accordance with these statutes, vital documents must be translated into all languages spoken by at least 3% of the relevant population.

Schreiber Translations, Inc. has enabled governments of all levels to comply with these requirements.  With a clientele that includes more than two dozen federal agencies, STI is regularly asked to translate documents that are critical to facilitating LEP individuals' access to services and programs.  The United States Veterans Administration, for example, recently asked STI to translate a handbook for participants in the agency's CHAMPVA health insurance program.  In response, STI translated the 19,000 word manual into Chinese, Thai, German, Tagalog and Russian.  It is this type of experience and expertise that parlayed into STI being designated the preferred translation contractor for the State of Maryland.  Though this contract is barely one month old, STI has already translated a substantial amount of educational and outreach material for local school districts. The D.C.-based Corporation was also behind the translation of medication information sheets, patient brochures, clinic policy statements, and legal documents for the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and hospitals throughout the state. Similar material has been translated for the D.C. Department of Health.  In addition to its work in the education and healthcare industries, STI has also supported the D.C. Department of Employment Services with the translation of its website, information about its program for disabled workers, and flyers about upcoming job fairs.

"Schreiber Translations, Inc. (STI) was founded more than twenty years ago as a translation company performing language services for the US Department of Defense. Thus began our longstanding history of performing services in support of U.S. national interests," said STI's President Marla Schulman, whom is also President of the Association of Language Companies (ALC). "We are proud now to be continuing this tradition with our service in support of LEP individuals in this country," added Schulman.