We live in a world of migrants, crossing borders, sometimes repeatedly, adapting to new cultures, new languages.

So how do you decide how to reach your audience successfully? What do they speak at home: Spanish, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Ukrainian, Creole or German? What do they read? What language can they write? What do they prefer listening to? How do the different generations in one household differ in their use of language?

Above all, what language breeds credibility and with whom?

The children of migrants are caught in limbo. They speak their parents’ birth-language at home and navigate the language of their birth country fluently. The chasm that exists between the culture they live in and their family’s roots pull at each other. One allows them to participate in their society and their economy; the other allows them to belong to their ancestors, their heritage.

Interestingly, many people may have greater fluency in their parents’ language but cannot read or write it; they only speak the language.

Hispanic migrants in the US are a great example. Older or recent migrants, who don’t speak English, will get most of their news from Spanish-language radio and TV. Their children will read in English, interpreting news, directions and instructions in Spanish for their parents who cannot read or write English. It is not unusual to see an older or recent migrant in a hospital or government center with a younger, US-born relative acting as interpreter. The non-English speaking person is still usually making decisions.

No easy, direct way to communicate with the whole family. Which means targeting becomes even more critical.

Determine who makes key decisions, determine their level of fluency with a medium, establish which language is used for your genre of communications, and you have narrowed your options.

Access is within reach.

Lynn H. Roberts

Multicultural Mosaic