The census tells us the truth about Rosemead: 81% of households speak a language other than English at home. Nearly 6 out of 10 people living here were born in another country. About two-thirds of the city is Asian American, and almost 3 out of 10 people are Latino.
When a campaign for change only happens in English, before anyone even talks about rent or wages, most of the city has already been left out of the conversation. It's about whether the work can succeed at all. It won't if we don't implement "language justice."
Read about Language Justice HERE.
The average household income in Rosemead is 26% lower than the California average. About 1 in 7 people live in poverty. More than half of residents rent their homes, and the typical rent is $1,834 a month.
The people dealing with the hardest problems, high rents, low pay, families sharing apartments, older people on small incomes, are mostly the same people who speak languages other than English at home. Language justice isn't a side issue added to the real work. It's how we must engage in the real work, because the people being squeezed the hardest are exactly the people an English-only campaign never hears from.
RTU seeks to center the people already fighting for housing justice - this means we strive to communicate in their primary languages as best as we can.
Thaura.ai can help us do this work: https://thaura.ai
