Report: Nearly 1 in 3 Texans speaking Spanish at home
Associated Press
Originally published 08:34 a.m., October 1, 2008
Updated 08:34 a.m., October 1, 2008
DALLAS Nearly one out of three Texans speak Spanish at home, a rise attributed to an increasing number of immigrants coming from Mexico, according to a report by the U.S. Census Bureau.
At the same time, other studies suggest that children of Spanish-speaking immigrants are increasingly likely to also speak English as they come up through the American public school system.
“The pace of learning English has picked up in the state,” said Texas state demographer Karl Eschbach in a story posted on The Dallas Morning News' Web site Tuesday. “It's an advantage to be bilingual.”
The census report said 30 percent of Texans in 2007 were speaking Spanish in their homes, an increase of 3 percentage points from 2007. In the Dallas-Fort Worth area, 1.3 million people spoke Spanish in 2007, compared with 890,000 in 2000.
The increases come at a time when 12 percent of the U.S. population was born outside of the country. A third of those, or 12 million people, were born in Mexico, according to census figures.
The U.S. Census Bureau reported that one out of five people speak Spanish in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas.
“This growth is due to the amount of immigrants who have come to the country during the last 20 years,” said Mark Lopez, assistant director of the Pew Hispanic Center. “We're seeing many more Latinos in this country who speak Spanish.”
