NYC’s first African worker-owned language cooperative is open for business

A novel, worker-owned cooperative serving the language needs of New York City’s growing African immigrant community from within is officially up and running.

Afrilingual claims to be the first African worker co-op for language services in the city’s history. The 10-person group aims to serve a growing niche market that’s expanded as tens of thousands of migrants — including many from West African countries — have arrived in the city over the past year.

At Afrilingual’s launch party in Harlem on Thursday, more than 70 guests ate spinach stew and fermented rice balls over tables decorated with the black, red and green stripes of the Pan-African flag. Many guests — including family members, friends, elected officials and fellow advocates — were dressed in Ankara print outfits and colorful head wraps, kufi caps, and loose flowing boubou gowns.

We have people who are underemployed not using their language skills, their multilingualism, their resources, their brilliance, from back home. Think of that as an asset.

Amaha Kassa, the founder and executive director of African Communities Together

Several speakers underscored the importance — which is sometimes a matter of life or death — of accessing health care, legal help and other services in one's own language. Many also pointed to how the group provides “language justice.” Afrilingual says it provides not only more accurate and culturally competent interpretation — but also better conditions and pay for the workers themselves.

“We have people who are underemployed not using their language skills, their multilingualism, their resources, their brilliance, from back home. Think of that as an asset,” said Amaha Kassa, the founder and executive director of African Communities Together, the nonprofit that incubated the co-op. “And the asset is that we can build something like Afrilingual, where the people who are closest to the problem are also closest to the solution."

Even as the number of African American New Yorkers declines, more African immigrants are calling the city home. From 2010 to 2018, the number of New Yorkers who identify as African increased over 30%, to more than 152,000 people, according to a recent report for the city's districting commission.

That figure doesn’t include some 60,000 migrants currently residing in city shelters, a substantial portion of whom have come from Senegal, Mauritania and other West African countries.

“You can see the ways in which language access will be critical for people who have come here from all over seeking to flee poverty and war and violence,” City Comptroller Brad Lander told those gathered at the launch party. “I don't doubt that there will be people — as a result of the work you are doing today — who can file applications for asylum they would not have been able to file, who get the work authorization that they need, and who, I like to believe, will actually themselves become worker-owners of Afrilingual.”

Afrilingual is the first piece of a larger vision — backed by several elected officials and advocacy groups — to meet the city’s language needs while providing jobs for local immigrants.

It will soon be joined by similar cooperatives for Latin American and Asian languages, which all aim to provide interpreters for less commonly spoken languages. More than 1.2 million people living in the city speak a language at home that is spoken by less than 1% of the city’s population, per a 2020 report by the comptroller's office.

“The wide diversity of languages prevents African immigrants to benefit from the opportunities open to others,” said Bety Faye, 47, one of Afrilingual’s founding members. “That’s where Afrilingual comes into play.”

Also in the works is a Community Interpreter Bank for more common languages, based on a similar community-based legal interpreter bank started in 2007 in Washington, D.C.

In recent years, former City Comptroller Scott Stringer and City Councilmember Shahana Hanif, who chairs the Council's immigration committee, publicly called on the city to back the creation of a language bank and co-ops. And last year, the city invested $5 million to support the efforts.

While Afrilingual currently has a small customer base of legal nonprofits, medical groups and others, its main goal is to win a fraction of the city’s growing bill for interpreters and translators — over $35.3 million last year — which mostly goes to private contractors.

Local Law 6, passed earlier this year, may give the group a leg up. The law requires the city to generate a list of "community-based organizations" that provide language services within the next year, and recommend ways the city can help them more easily win city contracts.

And the group has garnered support from some top city officials. When asked if the city would hire Afrilingual, Manuel Castro, the commissioner of the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs, said, “I’d love to,” adding that as long as the group could scale its capacity, “I don’t see why not.”

“We want to hire from within New York City,” Castro later added.

Local Law 30, passed in 2017, requires city agencies to provide telephonic interpretation in at least 100 different languages and translate key documents into the 10 most commonly spoken foreign languages.

But city agencies still struggle to comply with these rules. And some city officials and advocates say the existing providers are insufficient, leaving many foreign language speakers reliant on help from family members and nonprofits.

Many of Afrilingual’s members spoke of their yearslong anticipation for Thursday’s launch.

“Now the work starts,” said Malado Barro, 59.

Group leaders described their work as opening the doors that will allow less-represented communities to take root and thrive in New York.

“For us, language is not just a tool of communication. It’s like a treasure box,” said Faye. “You have heritage, tradition, culture. Every language is like a special key that can open that box. When you lose one language, you lose the key to open that box.

She added: “Our goal at Afrilingual is to ensure those keys are safe.”