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Estudiantes internacionales comparten pensamientos sobre la inclusión lingüística en UT

At its June 8 meeting, the Austin City Council approved multiple contracts to provide books and materials in world languages other than English to the Austin Public Library.

Council members signed nine contracts from international corporations like Latin American Book Source Inc. The total cost for the five-year contracts is $1.86 million, and students can access these resources through the Austin Public Library.

Marla Cantu, a Latin American studies junior from Mexico, said bringing more resources of different languages into Austin helps support the city’s diverse population. According to UT enrollment data, about 10% of UT students are international students. 

“Most resources are either English or Spanish, and that’s it,” Cantu said. “For other languages, people can be completely lost, and I feel like they just should expand the languages they have for resources like for the bus, you go into the bus, it’s English and Spanish, which is helpful for the Austin community and also for some international students. But adding another language would be really useful for international students or people that don’t speak perfect English.”

The University requires all international students to take an English proficiency test. Cantu said most resources are in English or Spanish, which hurts some international students’ ability to fully understand important information. 

“UT requires, when you do your application, a certain level of English, and so most people already speak English, but I do find that not all the resources at UT are in other languages,” Cantu said. “Sometimes they’re in Spanish, and that helps a lot for me, but there’s also people who speak other languages. They can’t find anything in their language.”

Accounting senior Felix Chang said adding resources in other world languages may be beneficial but is ultimately unnecessary. Although Chang grew up in Mandarin-speaking Taiwan, he said he does not gravitate toward the Mandarin books housed in the Perry-Castañeda Library. 

“If I want to read something in Mandarin, I can just search online,” Chang said. “In terms of learning. I don’t think it makes sense for me to, for instance, (take) a class in accounting that’s taught in Mandarin. I’m not going to take that class because I’m already in the States and paying international tuition. I’m here to be in the environment here.”

Undeclared sophomore Carolina Cordova said UT does have many organizations dedicated to helping international students find their community. Cordova said the focus should be building up those resources to unite international students.

“I think more concretely there should be International Student Orientation, even if it’s online because I think usually a lot of international students just do it online,” Cordova said. “But maybe designate a couple of dates on Zoom or something for international students for information, but also to start getting familiar with other international students that are going to UT.”