A Language and Education Profile of Immigrants in the United States

7/28/2019 A Language and Education Profile of Immigrants in the United States

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A Language and Education Profile of Immigrants in the United States

Plus, Barriers to Naturalization in the United States and International Migrants in South Korea

Because immigrants bring along their cultures and languages when they settle in their newdestinations, you may hear, for instance, Polish and Russian in Illinois, Somali and Swahili inMinnesota, Spanish and Haitian Creole in New York, Korean and Armenian in California, or

Arabic and German in Michigan.

This month, we have updated our US Foreign Born Data Tool with key national and state-level statistics onimmigrants' linguistic diversity, English language skills, and educational attainment (using statistics from the2011 American Community Survey). Visit the "Language and Education" fact sheets for a state-by-state (ornational) look at characteristics of the foreign born, which include statistics on languages spoken byimmigrants, their levels of education, rates of English proficiency, and a comparison to native residents. Hereare some topline findings:

*Habla Espaol? Spanish is the most common language spoken by people who speak a language otherthan English at home. Nationwide, of the 60.6 million people who speak a language other than English, 62percent speak Spanish. Spanish was also the top spoken language other than English in 45 states and theDistrict of Columbia. Only in five states did another language predominate (see Table 5, Language Other Than English Spoken At Home ):

Alaska , where 30 percent spoke native North American languages, followed by Spanish (21 percent) andTagalog (13 percent); Hawaii , where 35 percent spoke various Pacific Island languages, followed by Tagalog(17 percent) and Japanese (14 percent); Maine , where 54 percent spoke French, followed by Spanish (15percent) and German (4 percent); North Dakota , where 27 percent spoke German, followed by Spanish (23percent) and native North American languages, including Navajo (6 percent); and Vermont , where 32percent spoke French, followed by Spanish (21 percent) and German (6 percent).

* Immigrants are concentrated at the high and low ends of the education continuum: Nationally, 27percent of immigrant adults had a bachelor's degree or higher (compared to 29 percent of the US born). Incontrast, the share of immigrant adults with less than a high school diploma was 32 percent (compared to 11percent for the US born). Naturalized US citizens were much more likely to have a college degree thannoncitizens (33 percent versus 22 percent) .
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* High demand continues for English language instruction:In 2011, 20.5 million immigrants were Limited English Proficient (LEP) defined as persons age 5 and olderwho reported speaking English "not at all," "not well," or "well" and accounting for 51 percent of allimmigrants over age 5. The highest LEP shares among immigrants were found in both traditional and newimmigrant-destination states: Texas (60 percent), Nebraska (59 percent), California (58 percent), and NewMexico (58 percent).

Check out our LEP data brief on the number, share, growth, and linguistic diversity of the LEP population atthe national, state, and metropolitan area levels here .

To learn more about language and educational characteristics of the immigrant and native-born populations,visit the Data Hub's 2011 ACS/Census tool online and select the state you are interested in (or click on thesmall map of the United States for national data). Fact sheets covering immigrants' workforce and incomecharacteristics will be updated in the coming months.

Graph of the Month Naturalization the process of an immigrant becoming a citizen is an important milestone on the path tofull social and economic integration and membership in the host country. In the United States, naturalizedcitizens can vote and run for public office (except for President and Vice President), receive protection fromdeportation, have full access to public benefits, are eligible to sponsor relatives from abroad, and can obtaina US passport, which makes it easier to travel to many countries around the world. In 2011, the number of naturalized US citizens stood at 18.1 million (or 45 percent of all immigrants). An additional 8.5 million wereeligible to become US citizens. However, not all immigrants who are eligible choose to or can take the next

step toward full membership. (For more about the economic and social benefits of citizenship and barriers tonaturalization, read here ).

A recent report by Pew Hispanic Center found, for instance, that Mexican immigrants had a low rate of naturalization (only 36 percent of those eligible became naturalized). In contrast, 68 percent for all non-Mexican immigrants and 61 percent of Latin American immigrants (excluding Mexico) naturalized when theybecome eligible.

A nationwide survey of Hispanic immigrants found that barriers such as a lack of English proficiency anddifficulty of the US citizenship test made naturalization difficult for about 26 percent of survey respondents.

An additional 18 percent reported that the $680 naturalization fee put the goal out of reach.

Reasons for Not Naturalizing (Share among survey Hispanic respondents who were permanent residents)
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Source : Pew Hispanic Center, The Path Not Taken: Two-thirds of Legal Mexican Immigrants are not U.S.Citizens , 2012. Available here .

DATA HUB QUIZ South Korean musician PSY is arguably one of the most famous Koreans today catapulted to fame by thecatchy Gangnam Style tune that spawned die-hard fans and die-from-laughter parodies around the world.But PSY can't claim that he was the first to open the doors of South Korea to others; as the last two decadestestify, thousands of people not only visited but also stayed to live, study, and work in Korea. Whereas in1990 the number of international migrants (i.e., non-Korean citizens) was barely 50,000, by 2012 it hadgrown by leaps and bounds. Can you guess the number of migrants in Korea today: Is it 500,000, 1 million, or

close to 1.5 million? Check your answer here .

HAVE YOU READ...

Ripe with Change: Evolving Farm Labor Markets in the United States, Mexico, and CentralAmerica

By Philip Martin and J. Edward Taylor

Mexico is in the transitional phase of being both farm labor exporter and importer: serving

as the major supplier of hired labor to US farms but increasingly also relying on farmworkers from Guatemala. This report examines the labor market dynamics of the region, focusing onchanges in the volume and composition of production, the supermarket revolution in Latin America, trainingand education changes, and more. It assesses the implications of these changes on workers and migration.

On behalf of the MPI Data Hub team, thank you for your interest in and support of the Data Hub.
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Data Manager and Senior Policy AnalystMigration Policy [email protected]

The MPI Data Hub is a project of the Migration Policy Institute (MPI). Find out more about MPI athttp://www.migrationpolicy.org/ .

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A Language and Education Profile of Immigrants in the United States

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