Where Google Translate fails: how web’s English dominance leaves minorities out, and the people determined to break down linguistic barriers
- Minorities in countries like the US can feel excluded from politics, health care and more because of the primacy of English on the web and social media
In 2020, Jennifer Xiong spent her summer helping Hmong people in California register to vote in the United States presidential election.
The Hmong are an ethnic group that come from the mountains of China, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand but do not have a country of their own, and Xiong was a volunteer organiser at Hmong Innovating Politics, in Fresno. There are about 300,000 Hmong people in the US, and she spent hours phone-banking and working on advertisements to run on Hmong radio and television channels. It was inspiring work.
“This was an entirely new thing for me to see,” she says. “Young, progressive, primarily women doing this work in our community was just so rare, and I knew it was going to be a huge feat.”
And by all accounts, it was. Asian-American turnout in the 2020 election was extraordinary, and observers say turnout among Hmong citizens was the highest they can remember.
But Xiong says it was also incredibly disheartening.
While Hmong people have long ties to the US – many were encouraged to migrate across the Pacific after being recruited to support the US during the Vietnam war – they are often left out of mainstream political discourse.