Census: In 7 counties, 80% know language other than English

Associated Press

EDINBURG, Texas – Hidalgo County Judge Ramon Garcia remembers how he and his friends used to have to sneak around the schoolyard to speak Spanish.

"Back then, total immersion in the English language was the concept," he said Wednesday.

U.S. census data released Wednesday show that in seven Texas border counties, more than 80 percent of the population speaks a language other than English at home, confirming what Mr. Garcia and other area leaders already knew. Times have changed, and with the steady flood of first-generation Hispanics into the region, speaking only English is a disadvantage.

Mr. Garcia, the son of a gas station manager who rose to become a millionaire trial lawyer and the highest elected official in the county, made sure his four children grew up listening to and speaking Spanish.

The census shows that nationwide, nearly one in five U.S. residents 5 and older speak a language other than English at home – an increase of 15 million since 1990.

Although the number of Chinese, Russian, and French creole-speaking households also rose, the number of Spanish-speaking households grew 62 percent – from 17.3 million in 1990 to 28.1 million in 2000 nationwide.

In the Texas border counties of Hidalgo, Kenedy, Maverick, Presidio, Starr, Webb and Zavala, eight of every 10 people, or about 693,000 of about 866,000 counted by census takers, said they spoke a language other than English at home.

In Laredo, nine of 10 people, or 170,100 of 189,000, speak Spanish. Census figures show that of cities with populations greater than 100,000, Laredo and Hialeah, Fla., had the highest proportion of non-English-only speakers in the nation.

Laredo Mayor Betty Flores says the census figures don't surprise her, and she rejoices at hearing her 3-year-old grandson roll his "r" when he points out a "tren," Spanish for train.

It's nothing new for residents to address City Council members in Spanish, receive a response in English, and have everyone understand. Ms. Flores recently gave a presentation with the mayor of Laredo's sister city, Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. Her part was in English, his was in Spanish.

In the Laredo business world, she said, survival means being bilingual.

"I worked at the Laredo National Bank for 21 years, and the bank president used to say, 'You don't need to speak English to work at my bank, you need to speak Spanish.' "

But not everyone in a non-English-language household is bilingual, and speaking only Spanish is still a handicap in the larger United States.

Laredo Community College's enrollment is now 8,000, which is more than double that of nearby Texas A&M International University. Officials attribute a large part of its increase to people seeking to improve their English. A second campus will be opening in March.

Also, commuter students from Mexico attend the community college with hopes of management positions in U.S.-owned factories on the Mexican side of the border.

"It's created a need for a lot of development courses, especially when the native language is Spanish," said community college Vice President Juan Maldonado.

Mr. Maldonado knows firsthand what it's like to leave the border region and realize most Americans are monolingual.

As a student at Texas A&M University in College Station during the 1960s, he suddenly had dorm mates and professors who didn't speak a word of Spanish and weren't going to break into his Spanish to help him understand.

"I realized that I was more proficient in Spanish and was thinking and analyzing in Spanish. It wasn't till I got to A&M that I had to force myself to critically think in English."