English is now a minority language in Los Angeles and Miami

November 3, 2015

Asian-American immigrants have more difficulty mastering English

than Hispanics

Those who speak Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese at home are less proficient in English

than Spanish-speakers according to striking findings the Census Bureau released Tuesday

that suggest some Asians may have a tougher time mastering English than Hispanics.

Overall, Americans speak more than 350 different tongues at home, including some

150 Native American languages, some of which have so few speakers that the bureau

declined to release the totals for fear that it would identify actual individuals.

And in the country’s largest cities, English is actually a minority language: A staggering

54 percent of residents in the Los Angeles metropolitan region speak a language other

than English at home, as do 51 percent of Miami-area residents, 40 percent of

San Francisco, 38 percent of New York, 37 percent of Houston and 36 percent of the

Washington, D.C., region.

The data, gleaned from Census information from 2009 to 2013, found 60.3 million

residents, or more than one in five people over the age of 5, speaks a language other

than English at home. Spanish is the top alternative, with 37.5 million home speakers,

followed by Chinese with 2.9 million home speakers.

Other top languages with more than 1 million home-speakers were French, German,

Korean, Vietnamese and Tagalog. Arabic, meanwhile, was nearing the 1 million mark.