Covid-19 Language Access Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. MENG. Madam Speaker, with over 25 million people across our nation who have limited English proficiency, there is a critical need for translated COVID-19 outreach materials during this pandemic response.

We must ensure language barriers do not prevent individuals from accessing vital and potentially lifesaving COVID-19 information, especially as our federal, state, and local governments are working to get every single individual in the United States vaccinated.

Madam Speaker, the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated already existing vulnerabilities, inequalities, and disparities, particularly in access to health care. Inadequate access to health care for reasons such as language barriers increases health disparities among vulnerable populations, especially those of communities of color.

Health disparities are often magnified for individuals who have limited English proficiency. For weeks after the COVID-19 public health emergency was declared, the government provided little to no information about COVID in languages other than English and Spanish, which left millions of people in the dark. No one should be left in the dark.

That is why I am re-introducing the COVID-19 Language Access Act, which would require any federal agency that receives coronavirus- related funding to provide COVID-19 written resources to the public in 20 languages: Spanish, Arabic, Cambodian, Chinese, Haitian Creole, French, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Tagalog, Urdu, Vietnamese, Greek, Polish, Thai, Portuguese, Laotian, and Hmong. These selected languages are based on the languages required in the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Language Access Plan for Disaster Assistance dated October 1, 2016. And Hmong has been added to reflect existing federal standards, including at Department of Homeland Security, for requiring Hmong translations in addition to Laotian.

I am proud that my bill has served as a basis for President Biden's presidential memorandum to address cultural and linguistic barriers to COVID-19 relief and recovery, especially for Asian Americans. President Biden's executive actions underscores the inequities of language access particularly in the midst of this COVID-19 outbreak.

Madam Speaker, fighting this pandemic requires everyone to have the right information and to be vaccinated. But to do so, we must eliminate any language barrier so that everyone is best prepared, informed, and ready to defeat this pandemic together. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

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