I'm trying to get detailed data on languages spoken at home to do an LEP study. I'm able to get the data by PUMA; however, my city is lumped in with two other cities, with no way to segregate them.
Is there some other way to do this? We're on the hook for non-English language support but can't get granular-enough data to figure out which languages we have to service. Thanks in advance.
For city (sumlevel 160) and tracts (sum level 140), have you looked at table C16001 ? There're nine non-English languages listed
Grid View: Table C16001 - Census ReporterWhy just nine languages?
About…
Hi,
ACS Table B16002 provides detailed language data at the household level.
Data is available for municipalities and Census Tracts. You may need to isolate the tracts in your city and then aggregate them…
Perhaps whoever wrote the law should have checked what's actually available in the ACS before the law was passed.
I get difficult-to-answer questions like this a lot.
Dear Lance,
I've had a chance to look at C16001 for Buena Park CA and it seems to show that the only 2 languages that would be needed to satisfy the 5% criteria in the statute are Spanish and Korean. (The 5 year + population is 78074 (ACS 2022 1-year period). That should correspond to a threshold of about 4000 non-English speakers. The "other languages" category is less than 4000 so you don't need to look for other groups.
I looked up your linkedin profile and according to your profile you have a BS in computer science. I have a computer program that will adjust PUMS data based on tract level ACS detail tables to produce tract level "synthetic" data. You can then produce a tract level table using any PUMS variables. While I would be reluctant to use the program in a legal context, the program would give you a "leg up" on what languages you might be dealing with. Go to dorerfoundation.org and using the links at the top of the page go to the "Contact Us" page. Send me an email using that address and we can communicate via email. The mission of Dorer Community Service Foundation is to provide consulting to nonprofit 501(c)(3) organizations and governments. So far all of our consulting has been pro bono. I should be able to help you out with possible approaches to your problem. I have used an earlier version of the program on a project with the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Best,
Dave Dorer
Thanks. I think I have what we need now from C16001, though not to the granularity we'd like. I hate to extrapolate from the census tracts since they seem to be a blunt instrument. I wish we could get more data about everything at the block or block group level.