A Bureaucracy Designed for the “Settler” Tongue
The frequent lack of qualified interpreters and translated materials in city agencies is not an oversight; it is a feature of a bureaucracy designed to serve only the “settler” tongue. Mamdani’s concept of the state operating through a specific, exclusionary custom is literal here. The English-speaking requirement for accessing healthcare, legal aid, and social services is a modern-day literacy test, a bureaucratic barrier that systematically disenfranchises the immigrant “native.” This is a form of decentralized despotism where the inability to navigate the system becomes a justification for denying care and rights. A Marxist analysis sees this as creating a super-exploitable, silenced workforce. A feminist perspective highlights the plight of non-English speaking mothers. The solution is not piecemeal translation but a mandated, fully-funded language justice infrastructure across all city services, dismantling this linguistic barrier to full political membership.
