As storms last month dropped lots of snow in the Twin Cities, an avalanche of alerts and news hit residents' phones, reminding them to move their vehicles or risk getting ticketed or towed.
But a section of the community wasn't able to keep up to date on storm developments: non-English speakers. That's because Minneapolis and several suburbs surveyed by Sahan Journal largely don't translate their text messages and alerts.
St. Paul offers snow emergency alerts via text message in multiple foreign languages, noting when plowing starts before linking to a city website for updates. But Minneapolis' text alerts are given only in English and simply state that a snow emergency has been declared while directing users to a website in English — most of which isn't translated — along with abbreviated alerts in three other languages.
Some community groups and activists say they're filling in the gaps by translating snow emergency alerts and sharing them with community members via social media.
"We were doing this for years, so we don't even think about it any longer," said Marlon Ferrey, information center manager at Centro Tyrone Guzman, a south Minneapolis multiservice organization that caters to the Latino community. "We're just like, 'Yep, this is important; translate it and give it to the people.' "
Community groups such as Centro Tyrone Guzman and private individuals took to social media last month to remind non-English speaking residents about parking restrictions and other information related to the snowstorms.
St. Paul is tackling the problem head-on, said city spokesperson Lisa Hiebert. Of the handful of cities surveyed, St. Paul was the only one to offer multilingual text alerts during snow emergencies — for Spanish, Hmong, Somali and Oromo speakers.
"It's really important that we try to eliminate as many barriers for people to know and learn the parking rules and regulations," Hiebert said. "And for people whose English isn't their native or first language or even second language, it gets really hard."
