05-08-2020, 01:02 PM
Not sure of the background to this as I'm in the UK. We've faced issues with people whose limited grasp of English meant they weren't following the social distancing rules (they didn't know about them).
In general I am critical of money spent translating materials into other languages (I'd make exceptions for stuff to do with people trafficking and life-threatening situations). Also with this pandemic I think it's probably better to spend a few million on having the crucial information translated, in order to avoid there being a kind of reservoir of COVID-19 among certain ethnic or cultural groups that could reignite the whole situation again.
My reasons for mostly being mostly against translation services, from a left-wing perspective, is that while it seems inclusive it ultimately does people no favours. If you don't speak the language of the country in which you live, your options as an individual are incredibly limited. Furthermore, there is a very well established psychological principle (called The Contact Hypothesis) that the more people from different groups mix in a friendly way, you get increased liking and trust between the groups. Language is so fundamental to having any quality of interaction with said member of other group, that it blocks the contact from being positive, possibly even makes it negative, and so does nothing to help cultural or religious harmony between groups. So that's my leftie argument against the majority of translation.
There is what I'd see as emergency information that might need translating (i.e. if people can't read this in the own language they could die, or something very bad happen). But then at the other end of the spectrum you get money being spent on translating everything, or even providing translator services - so there's no incentive to learn English. I'd take the money used for translation and use it to teaching people English. Future immigration to the UK should require a certain level of written and spoken English language skills.
As for where information should be disseminated, I supervised some reached about this... in the UK, South Asians are especially prone to developing T2 diabetes. Since we have the NHS, their medical costs will be absorbed by the taxpayer. It is far cheaper to prevent than treat. To reach an act-risk chunk of the population, I think mosques and gurdwaras (obviously temporarily closed) could be a good place to have booklets on avoiding T2D, or inviting an expert in to speak about diabetes and how to minimise risk. In fact I don't see why that wouldn't apply to other places people congregate including churches or pubs.
Not sure how the USA has got to $23m for COVID-19 info. Someone is doing very well out of that contract, and it isn't the taxpayer. I can't defend $23m, but reaching out cultures in this acute emergency might be worthwhile. However in the long term it would be better if translations aren't needed because people's English is good enough.
I don't know enough about how finances in the US work to comment further and there are some sections where I'm unfamiliar with the background. But I think it interesting to compare the situation in the US to the UK.
In general I am critical of money spent translating materials into other languages (I'd make exceptions for stuff to do with people trafficking and life-threatening situations). Also with this pandemic I think it's probably better to spend a few million on having the crucial information translated, in order to avoid there being a kind of reservoir of COVID-19 among certain ethnic or cultural groups that could reignite the whole situation again.
My reasons for mostly being mostly against translation services, from a left-wing perspective, is that while it seems inclusive it ultimately does people no favours. If you don't speak the language of the country in which you live, your options as an individual are incredibly limited. Furthermore, there is a very well established psychological principle (called The Contact Hypothesis) that the more people from different groups mix in a friendly way, you get increased liking and trust between the groups. Language is so fundamental to having any quality of interaction with said member of other group, that it blocks the contact from being positive, possibly even makes it negative, and so does nothing to help cultural or religious harmony between groups. So that's my leftie argument against the majority of translation.
There is what I'd see as emergency information that might need translating (i.e. if people can't read this in the own language they could die, or something very bad happen). But then at the other end of the spectrum you get money being spent on translating everything, or even providing translator services - so there's no incentive to learn English. I'd take the money used for translation and use it to teaching people English. Future immigration to the UK should require a certain level of written and spoken English language skills.
As for where information should be disseminated, I supervised some reached about this... in the UK, South Asians are especially prone to developing T2 diabetes. Since we have the NHS, their medical costs will be absorbed by the taxpayer. It is far cheaper to prevent than treat. To reach an act-risk chunk of the population, I think mosques and gurdwaras (obviously temporarily closed) could be a good place to have booklets on avoiding T2D, or inviting an expert in to speak about diabetes and how to minimise risk. In fact I don't see why that wouldn't apply to other places people congregate including churches or pubs.
Not sure how the USA has got to $23m for COVID-19 info. Someone is doing very well out of that contract, and it isn't the taxpayer. I can't defend $23m, but reaching out cultures in this acute emergency might be worthwhile. However in the long term it would be better if translations aren't needed because people's English is good enough.
I don't know enough about how finances in the US work to comment further and there are some sections where I'm unfamiliar with the background. But I think it interesting to compare the situation in the US to the UK.