Language. and bay we are noteding with each and every you have a board of supervisors they fighting with you im excited to be part of this because first and foremost todays announcements is an credible vishgdz for the Filipino Community who has make sure in working with your policymakers we have a City Government thats responsive to all of our community. Im also excited like supervisor avalos and supervisor kim im the first childhood of a firstgeneration immigrants english was not theyre first language as a Civil Rights Center this is what we live for. When i came into office in 23450b9 i took the office of the coalition of asianamerican that came to me and asked how can we moved with the ordinance in San Francisco. In 2009 we made many changes to make sure our city was truly accountability with the vision seven hundred 9 billion government would be responsive for all residents we put in a process that we knew was going to lead to today where community will come down and well make and certificate another language to transfer our materials to this is very special for me when i was in college i studied luke like all of us. It was amazing i get to represent the neighborhood where the former manila was there was a dark time in the 80s we were concerned with filipino and asianamericans being pushed out of our city years later thats changed to where we are today authenticity incredible were here celebrating filipinoamericans and other san franciscans. I want to thank you you and end with one word that the mayor said. Thank you very much thank you supervisor chiu. Next id like to introduce supervisor jane kim who represented district 6 where we are today and shes been working diligently with the administer and the office of the k3w7b9 affairs to make sure we got her today and make sure we were able to certify to log as one language today thank you new mexico and welcome to the south of market its important we celebrate this to log and filipino im here as a community that has celebrated the home of Betsy Carmichael and this the the first school in the country to have a bilingual to log center. We represent the largest number of filipinoamericans in San Francisco. Were a little bit closer to city hall and its great to be here at the center. It was really the community that pushed for the recognize of this community and to have this language recognized as one that all our departments should have to our of times could be included i want to recognize terry from our Filipino Center with rudy and hes here in the south market we have many south market leaders and, of course, jess listen and mayor one of our residents long term leader. The mayor ed lee brought up the hotel. I was born the year of the fall of the eye hotel. I think everyone in the room has seen the documentary not only because asianamericans were leading the structural and have been an advocate whether voting and housing but amazing to see the coalition that fought for that hotel and chicanoamericans who lived there the black panthers for our seniors to have a place to live we rebuilt this for citizens and the one thing i can say about the community they persevere were fighting the displacement again and the filipinos are leading this so the fight never dies and the leadership and advocacy still sustains so congratulations to every one i want to thank the mayor and naomi kelly we couldnt have done that without you and thank you to everyone. clapping. thank you supervisor kim next id like to introduce supervisor avalos who represents district 11 we can clap for that clapping district 11 has the largest number of more than 3 thousand tagalog speakers and supervisor avalos has been a strong leader for tagalog. Supervisor avalos thank you naomi was going to do a hearing on the certification of tagalog harassing as part of the language cease program and yesterday supervisor chiu was throbbing how many hearings weve been doing now i dont have to do a hearing because of the great leadership of the Filipino Community but all across San Francisco i represent district 11 naomi said we have 3 thousand tagalog speakers and many more filipino speakers and in district 6 supervisor kim rival yaech in the filipino population but your government should be responsible to everyone and canoeing had k347d in 2009 was about that its lived up to the promise we want to make sure that the residents can take advantage of the federal benefits and the determination that wouldnt have come about without the support of the mayor and naomi and one who wasnt mentioned was a gentleman who clapping has done a lot of outreach in district 11 and in the Filipino Community and the young people thats served and thank you naomi and the may its been a Long Time Coming its a great victory all the major victories that happen in the working with communities this is one and many more good things to come. Thank you thank you supervisor avalos. So were here at the bye hi, 91 had an center. One the programs is the veterans Equity Centers to honor the veterans in world war ii to provide culturely and listen giving justice. The leaders is a woman that should why in the community for many years please welcome the director clapping. thank you frrment i would like to thank the community for role moving this issue forward in a bye tin spirit we are resilient and making sure that everybody comes together in moving forward. I want to thank did leadership of the board of supervisors who are present karen downey. Supervisor avalos and supervisor kim for listening to the constitutes and your responsive to whatever theyre asking for the Language Access. We thank you to our mayor, mayor ed lee for making sure he supports our community. I know about decades it is so telling how will i other people but a Service Provide out of market inform 23 years and i see the mayor smiling because i was the interim he always mentioned that but thought 23 years in my previous life i was working with at risk youth in the juvenile Justice System you dont know how its been difficult to to the parents who are responsible for the courts system. There are at that time, i believe there was only one filipino probation officer at the center so you can image theres a lot of them and few of us to speak tagalog. Lets fast forward to my work of the 15 years. Language has been very, very important because a lot of them have been fighting for their benefits, a lot of them haves have been denied their benefits and going to hospitals and thats been difficult to get the service because it would in their language. And even if they say do you speak english theyll say yes, but when it comes to an official document understanding the system they revert to their and a half tongue and a lot of them them speak tagalog what does it mean it have thank god for our languages for our immigrant community in the area of housing what side if mean how many people have not applied for available housing because of the language how many people have not been able to voice, you know, a lot of the, you know, if they have housing they dont understand there are laws and ordinances that protect them. For workers how many actually have been very silent sb about injustices in the workplace because they dont speak the language. So today is a celebration it maybe like we said it came a little bit late but in the near future once we get a lot of the services in the city in los angeles materials in los angeles we open a lot of gates and hopefully, the number of people who are not can you tell me services in the city will come forward and thats a victory because were truly responsive to the needs of the Filipino Community. Thank you clapping. thank you luis. Next id like to have say a few words is the filipino consul general clapping. thank you administer kim and mayor edwin lee and supervisor chiu and supervisor avalos and supervisor kim and the members of the Filipino Community. I would i want to say you cant imagine how appreciative we are and im sure its significant for them because right here the very core and home the Filipino Community of San Francisco weve started to take tagalog lessons from everyone starting with the mayor. Serially speaking mr. Mayor, we take great pride in being in the city of the care of the community. San francisco as you said is a city of diverse community. Very the ordinance thats being passed rec the filipino has a third language is certainly a recollection of the transcribes of this Great Community the filipinos. And certainly its very significant for them because not only is it access to language and services because it makes them open up the city to themselves and feel like a home to them. Certainly for any filipinos for the first time in the bay area this is wonderful and truly different when theyre far away from home. I want to thank you. Again mr. Mayor and supervisors ms. City administer ms. Kelly for the camp poosht timing for the community clapping thank you next id like to introduce terry valencia who the founder the Community Center terry served as the National Alliance for filipino concerns and a great partner with the office of urban affairs part of the network and was helpful during the 2010 consensus so terry clapping. thank you all for being here today for spornl this press convention and i went talking about this specific, you know, issue in our community and i thank you, again, for lending our area in moving this forward. I forgot to say speaking foreign word . Im not a fluent tagalog speaker i want to ucla but with my limited focuscy i had to do we have to help our filipino members Access Service and helped people to get food stamps and get Legal Assistance to fight for their reporters. A lot of the folks are doing this in district 6. I want to thank you naomi kelly for your work and supervisor avalos for proposing the amendment and passing it in 2009. Your staff amy and so many folks to thank supervisor kim and supervisor avalos and april and supervisor avalos office staff and also a couple of supervisors not here supervisor campos and his office and supervisor ed mar were helpful in the process. There are so many people that helps to make this happen were standing on the shoulder the Filipino Community thats been here almost a century fighting for housing and workers to live in San Francisco. I i know supervisors that have been representing their districts 6 and 11 we know weve hit the 10 thousand folk people saipg i dont speak enough english and the United States is so important there is an under count of folks so were very happy to get thirty to this point it took sprierns are pioneers of the community were happy were here today. I mention everyday nonprofit staff nurses and Government Employees and even school acknowledge children have translating for their parents and grandparent and theyre not being recognized but they have to the tagalog the official language in the philippines is a great thing its a city of gunpoint and welcoming of immigrants and all those English Proficient consultants. The Filipino Center is a proud member of the Language Access network and were proud to work with the network with adrian and others and our new speciality santa draw who will be working with clapping Going Forward so. The process is new this is the first language certified under the language act and we look forward to working with other Community Partners to certify other languages and hope to backing make the process better so we can make it a strong step forward as possible. We looked at to working with sandra and with the burn Heights Center and f ad s when is our sponsor today and bishop there are members of active leadership and grassroots we want to thank everyone for coming again, this is a big step forward a century of filipinos in the United States and this is right. Step to recognize the contribution and the strength of our community in San Francisco. Thank you all for coming here today and all your work clapping. thank you terry. I would like to introduce grass lee for affirmative action dpras focuses on Racial Justice issues. C aa is part of the Language Access network and is with the immigrant affairs. Grace clapping. so ill try to make this quick i, you know, today is wednesday im thinking of the irony because the staff is asking for the reform so today is a wonderful celebration of how lucky we are in San Francisco is have so many supervisors and mayor here in support of the community. As was mentioned we were involved if the effort of the access language and all those were in putting in place a policy that would allow our city to adapt to the changes here we are today, we have partners with the access here the burn Heights Center and we have a new partner we know this work is difficult its resource intensive it takes time and money and train but at the same time the Community Partners were going to go back to our offices and continue the hard work to work with the community they feel awe ashamed or whatever in light of that today theres no important, important to recommend that. Today is exciting and as terry mentioned the community has been doing this work for a very long time. We have our elected officials its San Francisco at its best today. So thank you clapping. all right. Well, thank you this ends our press convention and the mayor and others are here for limited questions. 7 and a half million renovation is part of the clean and safe Neighbors Park Fund which was on the ballot four years ago and look at how that Public Investment has transformed our neighborhood. The playground is unique in that it serves a number of age groups, unlike many of the other properties, it serves small children with the childrens play grounds and clubhouses that has basketball courts, it has an outdoor soccer field and so there were a lot of people that came to the table that had their wish list and we did our best to make sure that we kind of divided up spaces and made sure that we kept the old features of the playground but we were able to enhance all of those features. The playground and the soccer field and the tennis fields and it is such a key part of this neighborhood. We want kids to be here. We want families to be here and we want people to have athletic opportunities. We are given a real responsibility to insure that the publics money is used appropriately and that something really special comes of these projects. We generally have about an opportunity every 50 years to redo these spaces. And it is really, really rewarding to see children and families benefit, you know, from the change of culture, at each one of these properties and as a result of, what you see behind us, more kids are playing on our soccer fields than ever before. We have more girls playing sports than we have ever had before. [ applause ] fp and we are sending a strong message that San Francisco families are welcome and we want you to stay. This park is open