The National Planning Committee of the USSF recognizes that multilingual capacity building is an organizing issue. The task of incorporating the multiple languages within our movement is not simply a logistical question – communication between diverse groups is integral to successful movement building. To enable everyone’s full participation and draw from everyone’s wealth of knowledge and experiences we must address the multiple and often invisible ways that language can perpetuate and aggravate differences in gender, race/ethnicity, culture, sexual orientation, class, age, and ability.
Multilingual capacity building facilitates communication and strengthens the leadership of our communities by promoting the centrality of all the languages we speak and the wisdom and knowledge that is communicated therein. In building our multilingual capacity, we create multilingual spaces where language is used democratically and as a tool of empowerment. We are committed to continuing to strengthen our multilingual capacity over time, but must also acknowledge the limitations of our current capacity.
The National Planning Committee has committed to support three languages at the US Social Forum: Spanish, American Sign Language (ASL) and English. This does not mean, however, that the entire Social Forum will be interpreted into all three languages.
The opening march, the opening and closing ceremonies, the morning openings, the plenary sessions, and the People’s Movement Assembly - conducted primarily in English - will be interpreted into Spanish and ASL. The Language Access Team of the USSF will provide Spanish interpretation for approximately 10% of the self-organized workshops and a number of workshops are being held in Spanish or interpreted into Spanish by the workshop organizers. We recognize that there are many other languages present in our movements for social justice and that organizations that are bringing non-English speaking delegations are carrying the weight of making the US Social Forum accessible to their members.