PROVIDENCE — Lucey Ok, a 15-year-old Cambodian organizer for the Providence Youth Student Movement, said the governor’s layoff of three Southeast Asian interpreters “is not only cruel, it’s unlawful.”

Ok joined others at a news conference at the International Institute of Rhode Island yesterday in protesting Carcieri’s cuts to the state Department of Human Service’s full-time interpreter staff. The cuts were announced last month as part of an effort to pare the state’s estimated $450-million budget deficit.

Ok and other speakers cited Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which requires, in part, that state agencies that receive federal money not discriminate against people who have limited English-speaking ability.

They argued that replacing the DHS staff interpreters with interpreters hired on an as-needed basis will only provide word-for-word service, when community links and skill at navigating state bureaucracy will best fulfill the mandate.

One of the three interpreters serves the Laotian and Hmong community and two serve the Cambodian community, but one also performs other work. A Portuguese-speaking interpreter was also issued a layoff notice.

Ok questioned why Carcieri had zeroed in on the state’s Southeast Asian interpreters.

“The governor is sending a clear message to my community that we are not valued or welcome,” said Ok. “Well this is my message: our community has been here for 30 years, and we are here to stay. We are here to actively participate in this community, and we are here to build strong families.”

Carcieri spokesman Jeff Neal yesterday said the governor “expects that the state will continue to provide access to the foreign language translation services required by federal law and by the 1997 consent agreement” that was reached after Title VI civil rights violations were brought to light at DHS offices in Pawtucket and Woonsocket.

Staff interpreters for “more commonly encountered languages,” such as Spanish, will still be provided, Neal said, but for less commonly encountered foreign languages, “the state will continue — as it has for years — to provide translators through outside vendors.”

Neal added, “While we understand the concerns of those who are protesting the governor’s efforts to solve the state’s budget problems, it would be more helpful if they provided concrete suggestions about what other spending could be cut instead.”

Sister Ann Keefe of St. Michael Church, who has worked with Southeast Asian refugees for years, suggested that it was time to show “some outrage.”

“I would suggest to people, ‘Put your boots on, it’s going to be the time for us to be speaking out and acting on what is obviously not a well-thought-out policy,’ ” she said. “It attacks a community that has been giving to this state and this country for years and years before they even came ….”

Lucie Burdick, president of the Local 580 social workers’ union, also underscored the contributions of Southeast Asians during the Vietnam War, and the fact that war and genocide forced them from their country.

“We owe them a great deal of thanks for what they’ve done for our country and our veterans,” said Burdick. “So I would ask him [Carcieri] to reconsider his actions and to look deeper into the community he’s affecting and look into the faces of those he’s affecting.”

Burdick also said, “These situations are much more involved than they appear to be. On the surface, it looks like you just interpret what somebody’s saying word for word. And that’s what you’d be purchasing, if you purchased as-needed, fee-for-service interpreter services.”

But state government “is extremely complicated …you need somebody who understands the programs,” and who has the skills and community relationships that foster “a trust in state government” that people will be treated equally and fairly, she said.

Tam Nguyen, 16, another organizer for the Providence Youth Student Movement (PRYSM), called Carcieri’s actions “racist.”

“Taking away interpreters from our community is not going to solve the state’s financial crisis; it’s going to create another financial crisis in my community, as elders lose their benefits and connections to state services,” he said.

Many times, Nguyen said, “my friends have had to skip school just to take their parents to the doctor’s office or to the DMV [Division of Motor Vehicles]. The problem is, we are skipping school and the problem is, we are not even professionally trained — we should not take up the state’s responsibilities.”

Mike Chea, director of interpreter services at the International Institute of Rhode Island, said many older refugees lack fluency in English.

Chea said his own parents “worked and worked and worked” to provide better opportunities for their children. Through the years, they have absorbed some English, “but for them to understand what is on a form, and understand what it says and convert it into their own language, that’s impossible …. So it’s not that they don’t want to learn English, it’s that they had a choice to feed my family or to learn English.”

kziner@projo.com