The Purpose of this page is to provide you with a variety of information relevant to the issues of concern to the Person of Color community. It will include lists of California state legislation, press releases and articles relating to Latinos, Latinas, African Americans, Asian Americans, Pacific Islander Americans, immigrants and others in the Person of Color community, the score cards of California state legislators and the Governor of California on Person of Color related state legislation and other related material.
This web site is designed to be of use to those interested in person of color and immigrant issues and to community activists interested in these issues. People are encouraged to make suggestions as to what material should be added to these pages. Anyone may do that by sending a message to b.hinman@calcomui.org with a suggestion.
To see lists of Person of Color bills addressed by CalComUI click on any of the following three links.
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Who Represents Me?
Find out who represents you. Get all the contact information on the President, the Governor of California and of the legislators who represent you in the US Congress and the California legislature by clicking on the following link:
Health Care Service Plans and Health Insurance Companies Required To Provide Free Translation Services
On January 1, 2009 a bill of great importance to language minorities (SB 853) took effect in California. This bill will do much to help immigrants, and others from the Person of Color community, who speak limited English, to overcome the language access barriers they face during visits with their doctors and other medical care providers.
SB 853 requires most health care services plans in California to provide free language translation assistance to their patients who speak limited English. Many immigrants to this country speak limited English. This makes it difficult for them to have useful conversations with their doctors about their medical history, or about their current health problems. SB 853 helps with this problem by requiring health insurance companies, and health care services plans to provide free translation services to patients who speak limited English.
The law covers Health Care Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) and Preferred Provider Organizations (PPOs) in the state. These organizations are regulated by the California Department of Managed Health Care.
The bill also covers health insurance plans which are regulated by the California Department of Insurance.
Sometimes undocumented immigrants are the subject of domestic abuse, or are forced into prostitution or unpaid labor. Often their abusers threaten their victims saying they will turn the undocumented immigrant in to the Immigration Service if he or she runs away or complains to the police. So the immigrant feels trapped. Many of the people in this situation are from the Person of Color Community.
To resolve this problem, both the California state government and the federal government have passed laws to provide services to undocumented immigrants in these circumstances. The services make it possible for these victims of abuse to escape the abusive situation without the fear of immediate deportation. For a report on these services, click on the following link:
Person Of Color Score Cards
A central function of California Communities United Institute is to help people write to their California legislators, and to the Governor of California, on legislation that affects the Person of Color community. To that end we provide lists of those bills our our web site. You can see links to lists of bills that affect the Person of Color Community (as well as the three mahor segments of the Person of Color Community above on this page.
Now, in this section of this page, we provide the California Communities United Institute score cards on Person of Color bills as well as score cards on the 3 major segments of the Person of Color Community. To view the score cards, click the links below.
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OUR MISSION
To promote the social, economic, and human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex individuals, couples and families; people affected by HIV/AIDS; People of Color; people on limited income; and women. We do this by urging elected officials to enact and support legislation that accomplishes this goal.
