Posted on 10/06/2014 12:48:27 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The Census Bureau recently released data from the 2013 American Community Survey (ACS), including languages spoken for those five years of age and older. The new data show that the number of people who speak a language other than English at home reached an all-time high of 61.8 million, up 2.2 million since 2010. The largest increases from 2010 to 2013 were for speakers of Spanish, Chinese, and Arabic. One in five U.S. residents now speaks a foreign language at home.
Among the findings:
Data Source. On September 18, the Census Bureau released some of the data from the 2013 ACS. The survey reflects the U.S. population as of July 1, 2013. The ACS is by far the largest survey taken by the federal government each year and includes over two million households.2 The Census Bureau has posted some of the results from the ACS to American FactFinder.3 It has not released the public-use version of the ACS for researchers to download and analyze. However a good deal of information can be found at FactFinder. Unless otherwise indicated, the information in this analysis comes directly from FactFinder.
There are three language questions in the ACS for 2010 and 2013. The first asks whether each person in the survey speaks a language other than English at home. The second, for those who answer "yes", asks what language the person speaks at home. The third asks how well the person speaks English. Only those who speak a language at home other than English are asked about their English skills. The 1980, 1990, and 2000 decennial censuses (long form) asked almost the exact same questions.
In this Backgrounder we report some statistics for the immigrant population, referred to as the foreign-born by the Census Bureau. The foreign-born are comprised of those individuals who were not U.S. citizens at birth. They include naturalized citizens, legal permanent residents (green card holders), temporary workers, and foreign students. They do not include those born to immigrants in the United States, including to illegal immigrant parents, nor do they include those born in outlying U.S. territories, such as Puerto Rico. Prior research by the Department of Homeland Security and others indicates that some 90 percent of illegal immigrants respond to the ACS.4
End Notes
1 Of the native-born who speak a language other than English at home, 9.9 million (36 percent) are 17 and under; the remaining 64 percent were born in the United States and are adults who speak a language other than English at home.
2 Detailed information on the survey methodology, questions, and other information on the American Community Survey can be found here.
3 FactFinder can be found here.
4 The Department of Homeland Security uses the ACS as the basis for its estimates of the illegal immigrant population. See the most recent iteration of the unauthorized immigrant population, "Estimates of the Unauthorized Immigrant Population Residing in the United States: January 2012".
Because America Is a Nation of Immigrants™, doncha know.
/s
Well sure. My wife and I have always spoken a few. *shrug*
Does Ebonics count?
Does ebonics count?
Crap, slow buttons?%^^&
Because America Is a Nation of Immigrants™, doncha know.
English is our language... Which is now Universal for communicating!
Go to a mall some evening and see if you hear any english spoken.
Since January of 2009 we speak mainly Profanity in our home...
This would not bother me if — and its a big if —
1. We had an education system that Americanized immigrants like we used to have in the late 1800s / early 1900s the last time this happened.
2. We did not put all these immigrants on the public dole. If they just came and worked to get ahead like immigrants of old, this would be a positive thing (assuming they were integrated — see # 1).
Of course, neither of these things is happening today so the fact that more people are speaking other languages is just more evidence of the Balkanization of America.
In 50 years we will be a third rate,Third World country.I’ll be dead by then but it will still be a damn shame.
That can’t be. 0bama said Americans are ignorant hicks who can only speak one language. A guy who can only speak English and butchers the heck out of it.
“Go to a mall some evening and see if you hear any english spoken”
Besides my full-time job, I have a part time job in retail. The location is in a small shopping mall in a first ring suburb of Minneapolis.
At least 25% of customer who come in can’t count on English as being their first language. They speak entirely in Spanish to their children and vice versa. Many times the parents have their kids ask me questions as to where they can find a certain product in the store.
I shouldn’t do it but I usually give the parent a quick disdainful look as I’m listening to their kid talk to me.
The ones who do speak English - well, it’s so damn bad that it’s incredibly hard to understand them. I guess I should give them credit for trying to speak English though.
You just know that many of these families do not speak a lick of English in their homes and frankly, many of them won’t even try to.
I was on a trip to China three years ago. Every school child is mandated to learn English. I joked that there will be a higher percentage of Chinese speaking English in one generation than in the U.S. Some joke!
When my great grandparents came to the US about 130 years ago they spoke German at home, but within a generation everyone in the family spoke and wrote English. I have a 100 year old letter from my great grandfather to his daughter which he wrote in flawless English. While few of the old timers in the community where I grew up still spoke their particular dialect of German it had been completely replaced by English within two generations. Note it was common for the kids who grew up speaking German at home to go to school and have to learn English from day one.
Pig Latin was spoken more when I was younger but I illstay use it equentlyfray.
Of the Mexican nationals that show up here, they have zero to eight years worth of formal education in Mexico.
Think what your mental acuity was at ten or fourteen.
That’s our biggest problem. They can’t function here. The first generation is simply a write off. They can’t support themselves, and it’s laughable to think they’ll be able to support the children they produce.
It’s all on us folks.
Sooner or later they vote. Then they vote for who will give them the most.
Our nation was never perfect. It had to deal with human frailty just like other nations. Except, it had a better framework in it’s design, so it could make self-corrections. It’s government was designed to be in check. Even today, if that government was following the Constitution and abiding by it’s citizen’s best instincts, all would be fine. It isn’t, and things are far from fine.
Residents?
US residents?
Center for Immigration Studies. Pshaw.
I speak Jive.
At home is was always Spanish with my father and English with my mother. However that is nothing, our Black Lab Retriever understood both English and Spanish that the vet and a neighbor were surprised. Now don’t ask me what language he barks in. LOL
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