SAN FRANCISCO—Beginning in fall 2023, City College of San Francisco (CCSF) will start offering a Cantonese certificate program, the first of its kind in the United States.
“After over a year-long effort of the advocacy of over 40 community organizations, we were able to make that happen,” CCSF board trustee member Alan Wong said at a press conference on Nov. 10.
The Cantonese classes were nearly canceled due to a lack of certificates.
CCSF will provide two certificate programs, a nine-unit certificate and a seventeen-to-nineteen-unit certificate. The latter meets state standards and will get CCSF additional funding for enrollments, Wong said.
“Now Cantonese classes share the same worth with other language classes,” he said.
“Once the certificate program is established, I think we can disseminate that same program or teach other parts of the country to offer those classes,” said Jian Zhang, CEO of Chinese Hospital, at the press conference. “I think that would be great.”
Julia Quon, founder of Save Cantonese at CCSF, said at the conference, “It’s not only just about preserving culture, but it’s about ensuring that people can receive services in a language that they understand.”
One industry that needs such language services is healthcare. Jessica Ho, a representative from North East Medical Services (one of the largest community healthcare centers in the United States), said that the majority of their patients speak Cantonese.
“That’s why it’s so important for these services and classes to be available to everyone, including myself, including people who didn’t have the opportunity to learn Cantonese growing up—to be able to communicate, to be able to serve a community,” Ho said at the conference.
Another situation where language fluency can help is when interacting with first responders.
San Francisco Asian Firefighters Association member Doug Mei said at the conference that when a Chinese immigrant meets a Chinese-speaking firefighter, “it takes a lot of their stress away, that now they are able to communicate.”
