Trio’s efforts helping immigrants understand virus-related documents
Mimi Ngyuen is part of Bao Ve Collective, a Vancouver group she started with two friends that has been translating information about pandemic-related financial aid into Vietnamese.
It’s an effort that shows how gaps might be filled for marginalized workers and businesses, who are more likely to struggle to tap official help to keep the economy going.
Bao Ve’s step-by-step instructions in Vietnamese for applying for employment insurance and emergency response benefits are for “our aunties and uncles, our immigrant neighbours, and the kids who are helping their families navigate this time.”
Ngyuen said she and friends Y Vy Truong and Kathy Thai “have a friendship rooted in our lived experience of what it means to be a second-generation Canadian.”
“We all have parents and relatives who work in manual labour,” said Ngyuen, meaning jobs in factories, restaurants, salons, warehouses, grocery stores and in janitorial work. “It’s work that is labour intensive, physically, and are often low-wage jobs. They have been affected by
COVID-19, whether that is layoffs or having to work in an environment, but not necessarily having proper information on how to conduct themselves in this new world.”
She was signing up one of her parents for EI when she realized how challenging it would be for them to do it on their own.
“The emotional aspect for children bearing the brunt of translation work is witnessing your parents and loved ones face another set of inequalities on top of what they’re experiencing everyday, whether that be the very narrow job opportunities available to them or the everyday ‘traditional’ discrimination in general,” she said.
“They came (to Canada) with no language skills, or limited ones, for their future and their children. They can work hard and do multiple jobs, but they might not have the time or ability to know where aid might be or how to retrieve it.”
The three of them at Bao Ve are university grads, but she said translation tasks in some families can fall upon much younger members, who may even be elementary school.
So far, the response has been heartwarming. “The other day I was speaking to a friend and just making sure she was aware of our website and she said, ‘Oh ya, actually, my dad saw this.’”
Now, they are aiming to do the same for information about federal programs offering rent relief and wage subsidies to small businesses, who similarly face being shut out of getting a lifeline if they can’t easily understand, gather and submit documents.
The pressure to translate isn’t just about facilitating communication. “It’s about trying to make sure that we have the means to survive,” she said.
Bao Ve has joined a coalition of other community groups working to provide COVID-19 related information in Chinese, Vietnamese and Tagalog, so that those “marginalized through race, language and income” can make informed decisions.
“When it comes to small businesses, there is a huge gap in Vancouver for small, momand-pop shops that are run by older people whose first language is not English. Usually, English is their third or fourth language,” said Kevin Huang of the Hua Foundation, which is leading the coalition and has federal funding for this project.