From the Business Journal: Martin Gonzalez will focus on outreach to riders with limited English proficiency. I wonder what he has to say about fare machines?
From the Business Journal: Martin Gonzalez will focus on outreach to riders with limited English proficiency. I wonder what he has to say about fare machines?
21 responses to “New Outreach Specialist at TriMet”
Gonzalez: Senor, donde esta su boleta?
Pasajero: Las maquinas no funcionan.
Gonzalez: Que lastima para ti. Pagame 94 dolares, por favor.
I will say that TriMet as well as most of the other agencies out there have a very limited amount of information in anything but English – usually those generic “how to ride” brochures. Hopefully he’s also responsible for languages other than Spanish; it’s not the only language overheard while riding. (reads article…) hmm, maybe not.
God forbid people actually learn English to function in an English speaking society…
But why do Spanish speakers get such special treatment? How about all of the asian people in the area? Nope. They just have to learn English… We treat Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Korean, Viet Namese, and other asian nationalities and cultures as though they don’t deserve all this help – and treat Spanish speakers as though they can’t function without the help.
We also have large Russian and Eastern European communities here in Oregon. What about them?
What if we spent all this money on helping people learn English rather than having every possible thing supported in multiple languages? Wouldn’t that be more productive?
VR, while I agree in theory that one language makes things a lot easier for everyone, teaching everyone English is far more work, (for TriMet,) than having their stuff also be in Spanish. Like all problems of this nature, the best solution for the entire country is to raise our taxes a few cents, to pay to teach people English. But imagine the outrage from the anti-immigration crowd from that program…
In any case, as long as the DMV continues to produce the driver’s manual in Spanish, then TriMet should continue to try make it easier for Spanish speakers to ride. And yes, the DMV produces the driver’s manual in Vietnamese and Russian too, and likewise, TriMet should be going after those people as well…
Back in the late 19th and 20th century Privately Operated Streetcar operators in Montegomery Alabama hauled white and black peoples. They didn’t care as long as the fare was paid. Then the Jim Crow laws set in and damned them all.
Today Tri-met seems to be facing the same issue, get ridership, but it is a politically sensitive issue when it comes to language. Tri-met is going after ridership, regardless of language, just like the Streetcars went after ridership regardless of skin color. Hopefully we won’t pass any draconian language laws like the blind masses did in America for skin color.
I never have any trouble with the Hispanic passengers!
NEVER!
I take that back.
One time a guy who wanted to be on the 57 got on my 54 and started growling at me in spanish. He was so intoxicated he could hardly stand. I was sure he was going to take a swing at me.
I called dispatch via ‘alert’, they never called me back and the guy finally calmed down.
The hispanic passengers as a group are definitely the best behaved passengers on the system.
I’ve had gangs of 10 with heads shaved get on the bus,
pay the fare,
behave,
and even thank me when they get off.
Yes I know there are some high profile incidents involving Hispanics, but my experience is the opposite.
Realizing that for practical purposes English is the closest thing we have to a “universal” language, I’ll just say the following, primarily in response to VR:
It’s not just a matter of whether people learn English. Learning a language is a long, slow, difficult, oftentimes frustrating (though just as often rewarding) process that most certainly does not happen overnight. There are many Spanish-speaking immigrants who will benefit from this service–and from continued translations of published material and announcements–who are new arrivals in this country and may very well be committed to learning the language but have not yet had the opportunity to do so. Yes, of course there are those who have no intention of learning the language, but should everyone be punished for that?
Though from Portland I currently live in Munich, Germany. When I first arrived here my knowledge of the language was not much more than basic–it was what I had managed to internalize after a little less than two years of university-level language courses. That is far more than most immigrants have and it still left me struggling.
Although almost everyone in Germany speaks a certain amount of English (with the skill level in the younger generations being quite high), at the beginning it was still a struggle to get through all the day’s challenges. When I first stepped off the plane, had there not been English signage and–in particular–a staffed, English-speaking service desk at the airport railway station, I would have felt quite lost. Likewise with forms at government offices. It’s hard to feel more helpless than when you’re sitting in the immigration department of the city offices and your application for a residency or work permit is being denied due to some technicality that you can’t comprehend because the employee is speaking to you in a language you can’t yet keep up with.
At this point my German is fluent and this is no longer a problem for me, but I can most certainly understand how a lack of material in Spanish could be intimidating and pose a deterrent to transit use among one of Portland’s largest minority communities. From my perspective, it’s an issue of accessibility and social inclusion, and I fully support that.
And, as Adron pointed out, it’s what any good business would do.
How about we quit pandering to those who are too lazy and refuse to assimilate into our society? This is a recent phenomena – immigrants in the early 1900s worked very hard and learned the prevailing language – ENGLISH. Today’s immigrants are predominately lawbreakers and sponge off the social systems. If they don’t like the fact we don’t speak the 1,000 of other languages out there, its just too bad. ENGLIGH ONLY PLEASE IN AMERICA!!
ENGLISH NEVER IN AMERICA!
The founders explicitly chose not to require english, as part of the foundation for the concept of democratic country. To require one language is contrary to the concepts of freedom and democracy.
Anyways, requiring one language is Social Engineering. Let’s require everyone drive the same car (er, ride the same bus route) and live in the same style of house while we’re at it. 1 BEDROOM APARTMENTS ONLY IN AMERICA!!
And lastly… free marketers ought to be all over this. There’s a lot of spanish-only speakers in this country, and they’ve got a few coins to there name that they’d be willing to part with if only what you want to sell is in their language.
From what I’ve read about recent studies of immigrant families and language choice, the reality is mostly unchanged: Immigrant families learn to speak the dominant language within one generation. This is no different today for Spanish-speaking families as it was generations ago for Italian, German, and Polish-speaking families.
The only thing I really think is necessary here is that criteria regarding equality be considered: Once a linguistic minority reaches a certain percentage, will TriMet address it? In other words, suppose two decades from now the prominent immigrant language is Chinese (or whatever language), will TriMet apply the same standard and hire an outreach coordinator to address the needs of those 1st-generation immigrants?
To GTinSalem, note well what Bob R. said: immigrant families learn to speak the dominant language within one generation, and THAT HASN’T CHANGED. The immigrants of the early 1900’s (like my grandparents) struggled until their kids learned English, then they began to learn it themselves.
There seems to be a desire to beat up on spanish-speakers over this, but history does not support it!
It should be noted that TriMet’s website can be viewed in English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese, Russian and Korean.
It cannot be viewed in Japanese or German.
While I have strong opinions about whether Government has a responsibility to serve non-English speaking residents (or to what extent), TriMet is a government service that does not require you to prove anything other than payment of a fare and adherence to its rules to use the service. Is it reasonable to ask for proof of residency to board the bus? (Are you a legal U.S. Citizen? If not do you pay a higher fare?) As much as I despise illegal immigration, I don’t want TriMet being the enforcer of that law.
However caution must be exercised because if you serve some people you must serve all people. TriMet could get into hot water if it selectively chooses who to cater to and who not to cater to. I would hope that TriMet does ridership studies to determine which ethnic minorities require TriMet’s services, and to provide information to those groups (within reason).
However if TriMet starts doing ANYTHING in Klingon, then it’s time to fire some more TriMet managers.
If they are going to accomodate, then they need to either accomodate EVERY language of the world or just the dominant one, English. Maybe they need to have pictograms of everything too, and auditory announcements on everything (touch a chair and it says “this is a chair”, in every single language). I think we’ve gone way too overboard as a society in our inclusion efforts. Multiculturalism will destroy us eventually.
If they are going to accomodate, then they need to either accomodate EVERY language of the world or just the dominant one, English.
English isn’t the most dominant language in the world (you did say “world”), it’s not even #2 (although arguably it could be). Mandarin Chinese is #1, by a long shot. Spanish ranks #2 (depending on the list.)
See:
http://geography.about.com/od/culturalgeography/a/10languages.htm
But getting back to Portland, Oregon … I think it is reasonable for any entity which deals with a broad cross-section of the public to take into account multiple languages. As I said, above, I’m OK with this so long as equality is considered: Any language passing a reasonable threshold amount of usage should be accommodated if accommodation is to be opened up beyond the locally-dominant language.
Last spring, I took a German citizen on a walking tour of Portland and he was quite impressed with how “international” Portland was in comparison to other American cities he had visited, particularly impressed with the multi-lingual way-finding signs around downtown.
In some circles, accommodating multiple languages and cultures is a sign of sophistication and enlightenment, not a capitulation.
In the interest of full disclosure, although he was impressed with Portland transportation as a whole and the streetcar as an idea, he did not like the Skoda cars at all: I told him that the cars where made in Eastern Europe and he said, “Ya, I know, the plastic, I recognize it. After reunification, we got rid of it!”. The good news: He recently visited again, and the streetcars which arrived this summer had plastic which somehow met with his approval. :-)
– Bob R.
In some circles, accommodating multiple languages and cultures is a sign of sophistication and enlightenment, not a capitulation.
Thank you for pointing this out, Bob, as it’s absolutely true. And the converse is true as well: the countries that do not do this (in Europe, at least) are often viewed as unsophisticated. Note that I am NOT saying we should be offering information in other languages because of what other countries think of us; I maintain that we should do it because it’s a sensible and reasonable thing to do.
Honestly, does anyone out there really believe that a Mexican family (or any other) is not going to come to America because the transit agency doesn’t translate things into their language? Refusing to do it just sounds mean-spirited, if not something much more sinister.
And GT’s “everything or nothing” demand borders on the absurd (and by saying “borders” I’m being generous).
Straying a bit off topic, your German visitor’s claim that “after reunification, they got rid of it” is completely without basis. The most common streetcar vehicle in the former eastern bloc was by far from Tatra, and depending on the model they were either the boxiest, most stamped-out-of-tin things you ever saw, or semi-streamlined with what looks like Bondo applied by hand. And THOSE are what many cities offloaded after the number of manufacturers available to them (as well as funding for vehicle purchases) increased many times over (though not everywhere-just last month has Berlin finally stopped running it’s old Tatra fleet).
Their replacements? Largely “plastic things” from MAN, Bombardier, Alstom, et al. He’s got it backwards, and I’m sure talking complete nonsense.
James –
Regarding my German friend’s comments about the plastic … he was making a deliberately tongue-in-cheek remark. It was also a comment about the interior plastics (especially for the panels above the windows) having a rough texture and that over time they get a dreary, dirty look (supposedly.) So it was interesting to me that our newly-delivered streetcars (which arrived months after that remark was delivered) have shinier, smoother plastics with a more solid feel. Production-wise, maybe they did get rid of it!
– Bob R.
That reminds me of a comment on another string about the Icarus articulated buses. My wife rode those as a kid in East Germany…did she ever groan when she saw them again here in Portland.
The price was right on the Czech streetcars…cheaper off the shelf than custom built and with no federal money there was not “made in USA” requirement.
The problem is many of the Mexicans we have living here cannot even speak or read Spanish very well, either. Should So then should TriMet also be tasked with upping the literacy rate of these “immigrants” so they can even read the signs in the first place? What about the large number of Quechuan, Mayan and Aztec speakers? Should we pander to them as well? Maybe the City of Portland can offer classes at the soon to be open illegal gathering center so they can become literate. That also sounds like a great use of taxpayer resources, doesn’t it?
Greg –
TriMet isn’t tasked “upping the literacy” rate of any language group. They’re simply communicating in a language used by a high percentage of their customers. Target does it, so does Washington Mutual Bank, and most major corporations. Why single out TriMet for your immigrant-bashing?
Why aren’t you jumping up and down and shouting about all the horrible multi-lingual options available at PDX Airport?
What about the large number of Quechuan, Mayan and Aztec speakers?
Given the history of the regions which these speakers come from, chances are they also speak Spanish. But should any of those languages, or any other language, become as prominent as Spanish among our local population as Spanish, I would hope that TriMet would find a way to reach out to those customers.
– Bob R.
PS… In case you hadn’t noticed, this is PortlandTransport, not PortlandImmigrantBashing … give it a rest.
I think there could be a problem should someone who is blind AND only speaks Spanish boards a TriMet vehicle.
ADA requires that verbal announcements be made to announce stops. While a street that has a name would likely be understood, a street that is numeric in name (i.e. “Southwest 185th Avenue”, “Northeast 60th Avenue”) may not be understood. Or stops that require explanation – for example, “Transfer to MAX”, “Transfer to Portland Streetcar”, “Transfer to Line 71” may not be understood.
If accomodations are made for SOME languages, then wouldn’t an accomodation need to be made for ALL languages? Or does ADA make it clear that a transit stop announcement need only be in English? While stop announcements on MAX are made in Spanish, they aren’t on Streetcar; and they aren’t made in other languages like Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, German, French, Russian, etc.