Resumen de Improving immigrants' access to public services in the United States: language access policy and policy implementation1

Jessica Sperling

• Language access mandates in the USA, which require that governmental services be provided in any needed language, have been largely ignored since their first enacting. However, the past decade has seen an increase in the number of national, state, and local efforts to accommodate limited English-proficient individuals. This article provides an overview of methods used to provide oral communication in multiple languages and reviews technologies used in interpreting practices. More broadly, this article calls attention to language access in the USA as an increasingly noticed area of minority rights and shows how technologies have become a vital component in implementing language access policies.