Finding U.S. Census Bureau Data Relevant to Heritage Language Education Susie Bauckus, NHLRC July 25, 2013

We’ll find: 1) aggregate #s: Total #/% residents who speak a language other than English (LOTE) at home + the foreign born 2) # speakers of particular LOTEs in a given area (nation, state, county, city)

The American Community Survey*’s questions re: language: “Does this person speak a language other than English at home*? [if yes] What is this language? ______ How well does this person speak English? -- very well, well, not well, not at all.”

Aggregate #s: why important? -shows importance of field -geography matters -general descriptor for an area -???

Let’s get started:

>> Quick Facts > choose a geography Look for: “Speak a Language other than English at Home” “Foreign Born” To find aggregate #s:

Heritage language is a family phenomenon

Relevant study findings: “Children from immigrant families are the fastest growing group of children in the United States” (Urban Institute, 2010) “Census Bureau Reports Foreign-Born Households are Larger, Include More Children and Grandparents” (U.S. Census Bureau, 2013)

Survey of students studying HL ranked “to communicate w/ family and friends in the U.S.” More highly than “to communicate w/ family and friends abroad” Even among Spanish speakers who visit their country of origin often (Carreira & Kagan, 2011, p. 48).

patterns

Source: Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, year estimates

Finding Particular Languages

African languages Arabic Armenian Chinese French (incl. Patois, Cajun) French Creole German Greek Gujarati Hebrew Hindi Hmong Hungarian Italian Japanese Korean Laotian Mon-Khmer, Cambodian Navajo Persian Polish Portuguese or Portuguese Creole Russian Scandinavian languages Serbo-Croatian Spanish or Spanish Creole Speak only English Tagalog Thai Urdu Vietnamese Yiddish Other Asian languages Other Indic languages Other Indo-European languages Other Native North American languages Other Pacific Island languages Census Bureau lists 39 Languages/groups:

Let’s find the tables

find link towww.census.gov American Fact Finder at bottom of page In Table field, type “B16001” (Language Spoken At Home By Ability To Speak English For The Population 5 Years And Over) Then choose geography …

Geography matters: another example

Examples of Variation in a Large Urban Area: Most Spoken LOTEs in Descending Order Los Angeles County: English, Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, Korean, Armenian, Persian Cities in Los Angeles County Alhambra – Chinese, Spanish, English, Vietnamese Bell – Spanish, English, Arabic, Pacific Island, Tagalog West Hollywood – English, Russian, Spanish, French Glendale – Armenian, English, Spanish, Korean Long Beach – English, Spanish, Khmer, Tagalog Beverly Hills – English, Persian, Spanish, Hebrew (source: American Cmmty Survey 5-yr estimates)

numbers Connecting the dots: family ties strengthening academic skills identity HL as job skill me > world Advocacy/explaining: arguing for teacher ed collaboration across langs persuading admin., colleagues, parents, kids, gen’l population Funding proposals Publications: academic and non-academic articles public relations (brochures, websites, etc.) Informing, justifying decisions on languages for HLL classes/programs part of HL education

What will “languages spoken” table not tell us? serbian versus croatian versus bosnian french from canada versus from france versus from Rwanda mandarin versus cantonese versus taiwanese north versus south vietnamese (see Lam, 2006; Polinsky & Kagan, 2007)

moroccan arabic versus algerian versus lebanese versus syrian versus egyptian versus mauritanian etc. etc. peninsular spanish versus puerto rican versus argentinian versus mexican western versus eastern armenian relationship w/ home country waves of emigration; historical event associated w/ emigration

Find #s for your own area; Rank languages from most > least spoken Compare over time Take your own census: collect data from your students including place of birth, parents’ native language/s.

For Information and tutorials: see NHLRC’s Demographics Page: (search from nhlrc.ucla.edu) has tutorials and links to U.S. Census Bureau pages, Table numbers, and other information

References Carreira, M. (2007). Spanish-for-native-speaker matters: narrowing the Latino achievement gap through Spanish language instruction. Heritage Language Journal, 5(1), Census Bureau Reports Foreign-Born Households are Larger, Include More Children and Grandparents (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010) Early Education Programs and Children of Immigrants: Learning Each Other's Language. (2010). Walters & Trevelyan. (2011). The Newly Arrived Foreign-Born Population of the United States: 2010 (2011), pp acsbr10-16.pdf

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