06/02/2026
"In urgent moments, language access can mean the difference between safety and uncertainty. Through services like TPT Now, emergency alerts, public health updates, and community resources can reach more people in the languages they use every day. When critical information is only available in English, access is uneven by default."
Check out Social Media Manager Sabrina Fluegel's full reflection in the article linked in the comments!
What does it mean to be fully understood?
In a recent reflection for Twin Cities PBS, Social Media Manager Sabrina Fluegel explores a force that shapes our daily lives, our communities, and our sense of belonging: language.
Language is more than communication. It influences who can access information, who feels included, and who has the power to move through the world with confidence.
In urgent moments, language access can mean the difference between safety and uncertainty. Through services like TPT Now, emergency alerts, public health updates, and community resources can reach more people in the languages they use every day. When critical information is only available in English, access is uneven by default.
But language is also where culture lives.
It carries stories, histories, music, memory, and ways of knowing passed across generations. It shows up in Indigenous language revitalization, bilingual educational programming, American Sign Language, multilingual storytelling, and the everyday ways families and communities care for one another.
Through programs like Sound Field, SciGirls, Muslim Sheroes of Minnesota, and Profe: La Lucha Sigue, we see language not as an afterthought — but as part of the story itself.
At its core, Twin Cities PBS’s Voices Rising is about more than being heard. It’s about who has the power to be understood on their own terms.
In Minnesota, our voices rise in many languages.
To read Sabrina's full reflection, visit the link in the comments.
