APPENDIX C

Letter to California Citizens Redistricting Commission RE: Language Access for the Draw My CA Community of Interest tool

November 13, 2020
California Citizens Redistricting Commission
901 P Street, Suite 154-A
Sacramento, CA 95814

Sent via electronic transmission


Dear Commissioners,

As organizations and advocates who work with diverse communities, including low-income communities, immigrant communities, communities of color, and disability communities, we greatly appreciate your commitment to creating a redistricting process that is accessible to all Californians.

We write to encourage you to translate the COI tool into additional languages beyond English and the top ten non-English languages spoken in California. Gathering testimony from limited-English proficient Californians will be essential to the redistricting process. Recent Census Bureau estimates indicate there are at least 6.3 million Californians who have limited English proficiency.1

  • We respectfully request that you translate the COI tool into the below-listed languages. This list was compiled by organizations that do civic engagement work with limited-English proficient communities:

  • Amarhic 

  • Arabic 

  • Armenian 

  • Bengali 

  • Burmese 

  • Cambodian/Khmer  Chamorro 

  • Chinese (Trad’l & Simplified)

  • Farsi 

  • Gujurati 

  • Haitian Creole 

  • Hindi 

  • Hmong 

  • Igbo 

  • Indonesian

  • Japanese 

  • Karen 

  • Kareni 

  • Korean

  • Laotian 

  • Marshallese

  • Mien 

  • Mongolian 

  • Native Hawaiian

  • Nepali 

  • Punjabi 

  • Russian

  • Samoan 

  • Somali 

  • Spanish

  • Swahili 

  • Syriac 

  • Tagalog

  • Tamil 

  • Telegu 

  • Thai 

  • Tigrinya

  • Tongan 

  • Urdu 

  • Vakaviti 

  • Vietnamese

  • Yoruba

Translating the COI tool is an important step in providing language access so that limited-English proficient communities have meaningful access to this method of submitting COI testimony. We recommend that at a minimum, the user interface of the COI tool be translated into the above-listed languages, so that these communities can navigate the tool and read the prompts. We also suggest that the basic supporting documentation, such as any frequently asked questions page or user help guide, be translated into these languages.

We will note that a translated tool alone will not provide full access, and additional translated information and direct outreach will also be important. For example, short videos explaining COI and the COI tool in ASL and the above-listed languages would be useful. We encourage you to continue to consider these languages as you develop additional resources. For more suggestions on language access, please see the coalition letter regarding outreach best practices dated October 20, 2020.

Thank you very much for your time and consideration. If it is not feasible to translate the COI tool and its supporting documentation into all of these languages, we can work with you to identify alternative solutions. We hope that these recommendations were helpful. Please contact Julia Marks with Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Asian Law Caucus (juliam@advancingjustice-alc.org) with questions or requests for additional information.

Sincerely,

AAPI FORCE
Advancement Project California
Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Asian Law Caucus
Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Los Angeles
Asian Law Alliance
Black Census and Redistricting Hub
California Native Vote Project
Empowered Pacific Islander Communities (EPIC)
League of Women Voters of California
National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund
Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans (PANA)