Communities with a high proportion of South Asian residents have been hit particularly hard by the pandemic as many live in multigenerational households and work in frontline jobs, according to the founder of the South Asian Mental Health Alliance.
The Translator Kids
If family members don’t know English, how do you keep them safe and informed in a pandemic?
Christopher Cheung reports on urban issues for The Tyee. Follow him on Twitter at @bychrischeung. SHARES Mimi Nguyen grew up translating for her parents, who came to Vancouver as refugees. With the help of her sister and a dictionary, she took on the responsibility in her preteens.
Photo by Christopher Cheung.
It was Mimi Nguyen’s older sister Kim who first modelled the expectation that the children of newcomers should step in as the family’s translators.
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Experts say that in the absence of race-based data collection, demographics around ethnicity in these hotspots might be the closest B.C. can get to identifying how the pandemic disproportionately impacts racial minority communities.
“If we take a look at the demographics of the communities, we can see what we have already suspected, which is that people who are working in essential work frontline jobs, predominantly from racialized and marginalized communities are being affected by the pandemic,” said Kulpreet Singh, founder of the South Asian Mental Health Alliance.
“This is something that’s been replicated across the board in other cities around the world, especially if we look at cities where they have disaggregated data. It’s not surprising to see that here as well.”
This is the kind of outreach that Kulpreet Singh with the South Asian Mental Health Alliance says there needs to be more of, and not just when there is a culturally specific event or holiday celebrated by a racialized community.
“We’re seeing some of that customization and some of that culturally relevant targeting starting to happen now, and it’s very late,” Singh told Daily Hive.
“But I think that still if there’s any progress being made, it’s good, and we should really continue pushing in that direction.”
Singh acknowledges that the BC government provides some translated materials on its website, but says these efforts could have a larger reach with culturally relevant and language-specific infographics, and audio and video interpretation for those whose first languages are not English or French.