Chicago Bilingual programs

Speaking your language

Chicago is a city filled with diversity. According to data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly 30 percent of people living in the Chicagoland area speak a language other than English at home. The most common is by far Spanish, the primary language spoken by roughly 18 percent of Chicagoland residents age 5 and up. Following it are Polish, Arabic, Tagalog, and Chinese.

But what happens when people who primarily speak a language other than English need to seek out medical care, social services, or other assistance? Those language barriers—which are often accompanied by cultural barriers—can be a stumbling block to receiving much needed services. Loyola University Chicago is working to address those language barriers by training professionals in bilingual services across fields and disciplines.

As Chicago’s game-changers: We strive to work, research, and serve by being people for and with others. Find out how we make a difference beyond the classroom.

Meeting the Need

By Hannah Hepfer

Social work is often a calling—intimately supporting families requires patience, compassion, and extensive training. But add language and cultural barriers, and the profession becomes even more challenging. That’s why the School of Social Work is launching an entirely online bilingual master’s degree program this fall, with the goal of ensuring that Latino communities have access to social workers who understand their unique needs.

Edgar Ramirez, executive director of Chicago Commons, one of the city’s largest social service organizations, said bilingual, bicultural staff are incredibly important—especially in areas with high immigrant populations like Chicago.

“If you have folks who represent the organization and can speak the client’s language but also have a particular interest in or knowledge of their background and the struggles they are facing, that’s a sign of an institution that really understands the community they are serving,” he said. “A client will sense that and probably be more willing to enroll in your services.”

—Edgar Ramirez, executive director of Chicago Commons

In Chicago, nearly one-third of residents are Hispanic, according to the U.S. Census, and 18 percent of the U.S. population is Hispanic. The Pew Research Center finds that Hispanics constitute the second largest ethno-racial group in the nation, so the graduate degree’s targeted approach is a welcomed solution for those like Ramirez. The program is the first of its kind in the mainland U.S., with more than 90 percent of the courses developed and taught by faculty members proficient in Spanish.

One goal of the program: preventing children from having to serve as mediators between their families and social workers. It’s a dynamic the School of Social Work identifies as an injustice—and an experience Ramirez lived growing up.

“My parents were Mexican immigrants, and often our eldest brother would have to be the translator to help us sign up for services,” he said. “We see many kids put in that situation. That’s not a role a child should play. Institutions should have staff available who can do that.”

He notes that it’s often the nuances in service delivery, like linguistic ability and cultural awareness of the subtler aspects that clients face, that can make all the difference with successful outcomes.

“When a client comes into our doors—and at most social service agencies—it’s for a very sensitive need or something that’s very personal for them,” he said. “If the social worker knows the conditions the client is living in and can get everything that they’re saying in their own language, then what we can offer the client is that much better because we know the total context.”

Mariana Osoria, vice president of Centers at Family Focus Illinois, echoes that Spanish-speaking master’s-level employees are critical for organizations like hers and those they partner with.

“We have been challenged to find qualified bilingual candidates who also have the degree requirements, so having a program like this will help those who are interested gather the education and credentials needed for current openings,” she said. A social worker who possesses a deep understanding of the Latino culture can be particularly helpful in what is often an already delicate situation. “That can really reduce hurdles,” she said.

These trained social workers can find themselves needed in public and private mental health settings, government entities, schools, and hospitals. “Data continues to demonstrate growth in the Latino population across the country,” said Osoria. “And there are language access issues in almost every sector of human services, like mental health, medical care, and education.”

Ramirez said that while his organization has been fortunate in finding social workers who can navigate these hurdles, the need is great. “We’ve been lucky to have social workers who are culturally competent and can speak the language. But the demand for them is really high. And if there is a program that cultivates them, that just makes the service delivery space that much stronger.”

Tax Help to Those Who Need It

By Hannah Hepfer

Loyola’s law students were already doing the work. Currently in its 31st year, the Law Federal Tax Clinic provides low-income Chicagoans free one-on-one help for a wide variety of tax issues. But it’s also a resource for those who just want some baseline information.

“Not everybody has a tax problem, but everybody needs education,” said Michael D. Novy, the clinic’s director since 2001.

After fielding more and more calls in Spanish in recent years, the clinic has jump started its outreach to support more English as a second language (ESL) taxpayers.

When Sara Oakes (JD ’19) came onboard as the clinic’s outreach education coordinator, she resumed a project to get five of the clinic’s existing educational brochures translated to Spanish. “We had this entire population we could help but didn’t have the resources yet,” she said.

With the guidance of the University’s Spanish department, she completed the brochures and confirmed the translations were accurate. They were sent to local organizations that were already receiving the English brochures, including United Way of Metro Chicago, Ladder-up, Illinois Legal Aid Online, Domestic Violence Legal Clinic, and the Center for Disability and Elder Law. Last year, 300 English brochures and 125 Spanish brochures were distributed, addressing common tax topics like “Understanding your Filing Status,” “Alien Versus Nonresident Alien,” “Innocent Spouse Relief,” and “Child Tax Credit.”

Oakes said they hope that the brochures will empower ESL taxpayers to understand and perhaps mitigate tax problems themselves, while also increasing the visibility of the clinic, which already handles between 40-50 cases a semester.

The clinic then took it one step further and partnered with Language Link, a translation service that accommodates the legal field, so that Spanish speakers who call the clinic are heard from the beginning and can determine their next steps. Oakes also ended up identifying that other clinics on campus had a need for the service—which accommodates more than 270 languages—and arranged for them to be signed up, too.

Both Oakes and Novy say that they haven’t noticed that ESL taxpayers encounter specific tax hurdles. “Overall tax trends depend on the year,” said Oakes. “Sometimes the issue was from five years ago, and the IRS is just contacting them and now they owe more.”

Because those who use the services of the clinic are low-income (clients must be 250 percent below the poverty level and their tax liability must not exceed $50,000), it’s not uncommon for them to be overwhelmed by what they owe.

“They just feel so hopeless and don’t know what to do. They’ve received this thing that says they owe thousands of dollars and they’re thinking, ‘I don’t have thousands of dollars to pay by this date,’” Oakes said.

But often just the moral support they receive from clinicians in navigating their unique tax problem and arriving at a manageable solution, like setting up a payment plan, puts their mind at greater ease.

“Some people who call in are very emotional because they feel helpless. But we say, ‘We hear you, we want to help you, here are the next steps,’” Oakes said. “And even if we can't resolve their particular situation entirely, we’re able to help them feel better about what’s going on and get them to a place where they feel comfortable paying whatever they can afford until how long it takes to get paid.”

Translational medicine

By Erinn Connor

Down the street from the Stritch School of Medicine and Loyola University Medical Center, a small clinic bustles with patients who usually have no easy way to get basic medical care.

“We want every single patient to get the best possible care,” said Matthew Fitz, MD, professor of internal medicine at Stritch. “Regardless of their insurance situation or their social situation, we’re trying hard here to advocate for all patients.”

Uninsured and particularly underinsured people have trouble finding places to provide physicals, fundamental prevention screenings, and bloodwork at an affordable cost. Run by Dr. Fitz, Stritch’s pediatrics and internal medicine clerkship director, the clinic is an outpost of Access to Care, a nonprofit organization made up of a network of primary care providers serving uninsured, underinsured, and undocumented people. Located in Maywood, Illinois, the clinic serves the largest number of patients in the Access to Care network.

Eighty percent of those patients list Spanish as their primary language. As the surrounding community demographics shifted, the population of the west suburban clinic serves has shifted from a largely African American to a mostly Latino population. Medical students will often interpret for residents, who provide care at the clinic as part of their continuity clinic rotation.

“Oftentimes patients go to a clinic and they feel confused—and they leave still feeling confused,” Nelly Gonzalez Montes, a medical student, said. “For me, it’s about being able to motivate those patients. They should be open to asking specific questions and go home feeling like they understand what’s going on with their health.”

Gonzalez Montes is a part of Stritch’s Medical Spanish program, which seeks to improve communications in health care settings for Latinos. Through the program, students can become certified, learn how to interact directly with patients, and give diagnoses and medical instructions. Students involved in the Medical Spanish program also work at clinics affiliated with Cook County, West Suburban Hospital, and John J. Madden Health Center.

Meanwhile, students in another program are working towards bettering communication with another important Chicago group, the Polish population. More than one million Poles live in the Chicagoland area, and the number of Polish interpreters is low.

The Medical Polish program looks to educate future doctors on helping patients become more compliant with treatment and to help minimize miscommunication. It also puts an emphasis on partaking in cultural events, such as Wigilia, a traditional Polish Christmas Eve feast.

The Access to Care clinic offers a way for students to use their new medical language skills. Starting out first as an interpreter for Access to Care, Gonzalez Montes began to better realize patient needs, particularly when it came to the patient-doctor relationship. Gonzalez Montes and fellow medical student Romina Sifuentes Palomino developed a sustainable, long-term health coaching program with the clinic through Gonzalez Montes’ Albert Schweitzer Fellowship.

““It’s not only a great help to us to have first- and second-year medical students interpreting, but it also gives them a more personal clinical experience that they normally wouldn’t be having that early in their academic career,” said Dr. Fitz. “They’re fluent in the language, they realize the value of their work, and they have that cultural connection with the patients.”