Why Hawaii’s Language Access Office Is Having Trouble ‘Fulfilling Its Mission’ 0 The state auditor says OLA “remains a partially formed organization” some 16 years after its establishment. Advocates say that’s keeping non-English speakers from getting much-needed services.

When the pandemic hit in 2020, the Hawaii unemployment office was flooded with calls from thousands of workers who suddenly found themselves without a paycheck. People had to wait hours for a representative to help with their claim. But workers who didn’t speak English well or at all faced another hurdle: communicating with staffers who finally answered their calls.

Honolulu resident and Chuukese interpreter Philios Uruman recalled volunteering countless hours on the phone to help his fellow Micronesian workers access much-needed unemployment payments.

It was frustrating and, he later learned, should have been avoidable. As a state agency, the unemployment office is required to provide meaningful access to services for non-English speaking communities that it serves. The office’s failure to do so in 2020 resulted in five federal civil rights complaints and a 2021 settlement agreement.

Now, the state auditor found the Office of Language Access, which is tasked with ensuring non-English people get access to state services, has largely failed to fulfill the vision the Legislature set out for it when creating the office in 2006.

Why Hawaii’s Language Access Office Is Having Trouble ‘Fulfilling Its Mission’