CITY of ALBUQUERQUE
TWENTY FOURTH COUNCIL
COUNCIL BILL NO. R-21-231 ENACTMENT NO. ______________________
SPONSORED BY: Lan Sena, Klarissa J. Pe?a, Isaac Benton, Pat Davis
RESOLUTION
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Directing The City Of Albuquerque To Provide Language Access To Make Information And Services More Accessible To All City Residents, Regardless Of Their Ability Or English Proficiency (Sena, Pe?a, Benton, Davis)
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DIRECTING THE CITY OF ALBUQUERQUE TO PROVIDE LANGUAGE ACCESS TO MAKE INFORMATION AND SERVICES MORE ACCESSIBLE TO ALL CITY RESIDENTS, REGARDLESS OF THEIR ABILITY OR ENGLISH PROFICIENCY.
WHEREAS, The Albuquerque metropolitan area is home to 845,849 people; and
WHEREAS, Five percent of this population reports having a hearing disability and 67,357 speak little or no English; and
WHEREAS, The most common languages in the City other than English are Spanish, Din?, American Sign Language, Vietnamese, and Mandarin, all of which have more than 1,000 speakers; The City has an estimated 55,537 mono-lingual Spanish-speakers; 2,300 speakers of Northern Native American languages, predominantly Din? (1207); 2,063 mono-lingual Vietnamese speakers, 1,344 speakers of Mandarin; and
WHEREAS, The City has hundreds of speakers of each of the following languages who speak English less than well: Japanese, Arabic, Tagalog, French, Korean, Russian, Thai, Gujarati, Pashto, Farsi, Dari and Swahili. These populations enrich our city with cultures, skills and abilities gained from their lived experiences, and all have chosen to live in Albuquerque; and
WHEREAS, The City seeks to make government services and resources easily available and understandable to all people living in Albuquerque, including non-English speakers and those with vision, hearing, and communication disabilities; and
WHEREAS, Title VI of the Federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 states that "no person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin...
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