Department of City Planning confirms, New York City’s linguistic diversity is over 200 languages. Which establishes it as America’s diverse culture Centre. In US presidential elections, ballot paper will be available in only five languages, which includes English. New York City offers ballot in Bengali language for the US Presidential election.

Inclusion Of Bengali Language On Ballot

A key decision from a lawsuit settlement led to inclusion of Bengali on the ballot paper. The Bengali language is included alongside Chinese, Korean and Spanish. The decision from lawsuit came out keeping in mind the city’s diverse population.

“We are required to service four other languages besides English. It is Chinese, Spanish, Korean and Bengali as the Asian languages,” said Micheal J Ryan, executive director, Board of Elections, NYC.

The inclusion of Bengali language, spoken by people from Bangladesh and India, is significant for South Asian Community in Queens. This move is just to make improvement in participation of Bengali-speaking community. Although it doesn’t represent all languages spoken by South Asians.

President of Federation of India Association, Dr. Avinash Gupta  believes that this move is going to empower the Indian community.  According to Department of  City Planning New York City is home to over 200 languages.

Dr Avinash Gupta mentioned that, “It will help the Indian population to go out and vote. That is how we can get our voices heard. We are a sizable population. It is heartening to see how Indians go out and vote and even contest elections”.

Apart from the Bengali Language, the other four language on ballot includes Chinese, Spanish, Korean and English. By the law, New York City is obligated to provide voting material in Bengali at certain poll sites. For the first time South Asian Community in New York’s Queens found the ballots in Bengali in 2013.

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