Diversity within Non-English Language Communities: Chicago in 2000

Hiromi Ishizawa, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

With the 2000 Census data, I identify non-English language (NEL) communities (defined as spatial concentrations of speakers) and investigate the linguistic, demographic, and socioeconomic characteristics of these communities in Chicago. I seek to answer two research questions. First, do non-English language speakers live close enough to form spatially bounded communities? Second, what are these communities like? For example, are they linguistically homogenous (comprised of one non-English language group) or linguistically diverse (comprised of multiple non-English language groups)? I use exploratory spatial data analysis to describe and visualize distributions of NEL neighborhoods (as represented by census tracts). I then use spatial autocorrelation analysis to identify spatial clusters of NEL neighborhoods. The findings suggest that there are NEL communities in central cities. Inconsistent with spatial assimilation theory, the findings also show that there are NEL communities in suburbs and that there is a language group specific pattern in NEL communities.