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

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

2. We’ll find: 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)

3. 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.”

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

5. Let’s get started:

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

7. Heritage language is a family phenomenon

10. 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)

11. 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).

12. patterns

13. Source: Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, 2006-11 5-year estimates

14. Finding Particular Languages

15. Census Bureau lists 39 Languages/groups: 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

16. Let’s find the tables

17. start @ www.census.gov, find link to 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 …

18. Geography matters: another example

19. 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: 2007-11 American Cmmty Survey 5-yr estimates)

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

21. 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)

22. moroccanarabic versus algerian versus lebanese versus syrian versus egyptian versus mauritanian etc. etc. peninsular spanish versus puertorican versus argentinian versus mexican western versus eastern armenian relationship w/ home country waves of emigration; historical event associated w/ emigration

23. 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.

24. 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

25. References • Carreira, M. (2007). Spanish-for-native-speaker matters: narrowing the • Latino achievement gap through Spanish language instruction. Heritage • Language Journal, 5(1), 147-171. www.heritagelanguages.org • Census Bureau Reports Foreign-Born Households are Larger, • Include More Children and Grandparents (U.S. Census Bureau, • 2010) • http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/foreignborn_population/cb12-79.html Early Education Programs and Children of Immigrants: Learning Each Other's Language. (2010). http://www.urban.org/publications/412205.html • Walters & Trevelyan. (2011). The Newly Arrived Foreign-Born • Population of the United States: 2010 (2011), pp. 3-6. • http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/ acsbr10-16.pdf

26. Please send questions, comments, and feedback to sbauckus@international.ucla.edu