Picture this: An elderly Korean immigrant living in Los Angeles who, understandably, struggles with English. She first turned to the Korean American Coalition in Koreatown to have her mail read, even though it took her an hour and a half on the city bus to get there. Her concern – what if she had important bills? Government notices? Letters from her landlord? On her own, she couldn’t know.
The kicker? When she finally got to KAC, their employees found that four of the five envelopes she had schlepped with her were junk mail.
She had traveled an hour and a half there, and would have to travel an hour and a half back home, just to be told she had been delivered coupons from Bed Bath and Beyond. This, all because of a language barrier.