Dear Editor:
The other day I heard a neighbor’s high-school-aged son ask his parents why he had to take a foreign language in school. “I’ll never need it,” he said. I had to smile. As the manager of a Social Security office, I could tell that young man that there are not many skills he will learn that are as useful as knowing another language.
Every day, people walk into our office who do not speak English, or for whom English is their second language.
And it’s not just in our office. According to the 2000 Census, there has been a 57 percent increase in the foreign-born population of the United States in the last 10 years. More than half of these people are from Latin America, and a fourth are from Asia. Of this foreign-born population, 47 million people spoke a language other than English at home.
So almost all American business and government organizations must work hard to accommodate new, non-English-speaking citizens. And no one, I am proud to say, has worked harder than Social Security.
Our Commissioner, Jo Ann Barnhart, has said, “The Social Security Administration wants all Americans to have access to the services we provide,” regardless of their ability to communicate in English.
Last year, about 2½ million people preferred to deal with our agency in a language other than English, and a vast majority of those preferred Spanish.
To meet this demand, we have worked hard during the past few years to increase our bilingual hiring. Since 1995, nearly a third of all newly hired employees in our field offices are bilingual.
We also have Spanish-language options for anyone who calls our toll-free number, 1-800-772-1213. Callers also can use this number to schedule an appointment and ask for an interpreter, free of charge, in virtually any language.
But the centerpiece of our effort is our Multi-Language Gateway at www.ssa.gov/multilanguage on the Internet.
This site explains each of our benefit programs, the requirements to qualify for benefits and how to apply — in 15 different languages. And, in case you are wondering, the 15 languages are Arabic, Armenian, Chinese, Farsi, French, Greek, Haitian-Creole, Italian, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog and Vietnamese.
We are proud of the fact that our Gateway page received the 2002 E-Gov Explore Award, which recognizes new and better ways of dealing with problems facing the government. Our goal is to serve the public and provide Social Security program information in as many languages as possible.
Oh, and in case my neighbor’s son happens to read this column, let me just say that you may be surprised at how useful Spanish and Russian could be.
Yvonne Bryant
Social Security Manager, Jersey City