‘Home, sweet casa’ – access to home loans in Los Angeles: A critique of English and Spanish home loan brochures

Abstract

In the U.S., the Community Reinvestment (CRA) and Home Mortgage Disclosure Acts (HMDA) have focused attention on fair lending practices. The CRA mandates banks to serve all communities, including minority and low-income populations, within their geographic boundaries. One test regulators use to determine compliance examines percentages of minority group loans in banks' HMD A data. In 1993, HMD A data showed lower percentages of home loans to Latinos l in California. This finding belies a study by Dataquick Information Systems showing that Latinos constitute the fastest growing home buyer group in Los Angeles County. However, iristead of seeking löahs fröm banks, maiiy Latinos ütilize non-bank resources. Touchstone (1995) argues that Latinos use non-bank sources because Los Angeles banks provide inadequate minority language Services. Kaplan, Touchstone, and Hagstrom (1995) have focused on one area of such Services: written brochures and their translation problems. From this research, they developed a translationmiscue paradigm implicating three types of problems: i) translation error, ii) translation misfit, and iii) translation omission. The current study focuses on English and Spanish home mortgage brochures, demonstrating that these are also marked by the same translation miscues.

Impacts of Multiscale Racial Concentration on Neighborhood Foreclosure Risk in Immigrant Gateway Metropolitan Areas

“…Loan documents are frequently provided only in English, which leads to information asymmetry (Phetchareun 2012). Even when translation is provided, there may be critical errors or omissions (Touchstone et al 2009). Recent immigrants are less likely to have an established credit history in the United States and may lack familiarity with the American banking system, two factors that pose additional risks (Del Rio 2010; Orozco 2004).…”