Asian languages spoken widely in 18 states

Graphic: Business Insider

I love walking the streets of New York City and San Francisco. I could sit in one spot and the world would pass by -- tourists and residents speaking a cacophony of foreign languages.

Nothing emphasizes the US's immigrant heritage than the ton of languages people speak at home. English and Spanish, of course, are the two main languages spoken across the country. But the third most spoken language in each state, may be surprising to you.

Waiting at a crosswalk in San Francisco, one can imagine being in Manila with all the Tagalog being spoken. In California, where I'm based, the Filipino dialect Tagalog is the most frequently spoken language after English and Spanish. 

The US Census Bureau's American Community Survey annually asks more than 1 million Americans questions about their lives, families, and backgrounds. One question asks respondents what language they mainly speak in their homes.

Using individual-level responses from the 2017 American Community Survey assembled and published by the Minnesota Population Center's Integrated Public Use Microdata Series program, Business Insider found the most common language spoken at home in each state, excluding English and Spanish.

In neighboring Nevada, Tagalog is also the most spoken language at home. That wouldn't be a surprise if you've wandered through the tourist attractions and The Strip and you saw the number of Filipino employees employed by the casinos. Filipinos are the largest Asian American ethnic group in Las Vegas.

Nationally, the estimated number of Tagalog speakers is 1,753,712, according to the Census Bureau.

Another Filipino dialect, Ilocano, is the major language in Hawaii. During the heyday of sugarcane and pineapples, huge number of Filipinos from the Ilocos region, north of Manila were brought in by the plantation owners to join the Japanese and Chinese workers who were already in the fields. Today, 85% of the Filipino population in Hawaii is Ilocano and with the Tagalog speakers, Filipino Americans make up the largest Asian ethnic group in the state.

Other Asian languages that are spoken widely are:

• Not surprisingly, Chinese is the language from Asia that has the most speakers. The largest Asian ethnic group, which includes Taiwanese, number over 5 million, of which 2,155,939, speak one of the Chinese languages. The states where they are the most commonly spoken language at home other than English and Spanish are New York, Washington, Arkansas, Missouri, Utah.

• Korean-Americans are the fifth-largest Asian immigrant group in the US and have 1,104,145 Americans speak Korean at home. They are almost entirely from South Korea, The states where Korean is the most commonly spoken language at home other than English and Spanish are Virginia, Alabama and Georgia.

• Gujarati is the most common Indian language in New Jersey. Its speakers originally came from the western Indian state of Gujarat. In the US, there are 419,964 Gujarati speakers.


• Vietnamese is the most commonly spoken language at home other than English and Spanish in Texas, Oklahoma, Oregon, Kansas, Iowa and Mississippi thanks to over 1.5 million Vietnamese speakers. Over half of all Vietnamese-Americans live in either California or Texas.

• Although many Nepalese people have settled in Nebraska, where Nepalese is the language spoken at home for relative to other immigrant communities, the actual number is unclear. The biggest single Nepalese group is in New York City, with 9,000 people. Nationwide, there are 202,218 Nepalese speakers.

German is the most commonly spoken non-English, non-Spanish language in nine states, with French most common in six states and D.C.

Hurricane Harvey: Coast Guard member coordinates rescue in Vietnamese

Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Vincent Resley translated a rescue operation 

rescuing Vietnamese on a vessel.

COAST GUARD NEWS

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – The Coast Guard and a good Samaritan rescued four people from a 42-foot vessel taking on water in the Aransas Pass near Corpus Christi, Monday.

The Coast Guard received a call at approximately 9 a.m. from a man aboard the vessel who only spoke Vietnamese attempting to report his vessel sinking. Petty Officer 3rd Class Vincent Resley, a crew member at the Incident Command Post in Corpus Christi, was able to assist in translating for the Coast Guard in order to safely coordinate a rescue with a good Samaritan in the area.

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• Indian student drowns 
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All four people were safely recovered by the good Samaritan with no medical conditions.

“I’m very impressed with the quality of our junior members and their willingness assist in anyway possible,” said Lt. Cmdr Ariel Berrios, the search and rescue branch chief at the Incident Command Post in Corpus Christi. “Petty Officer Resley answered the call without hesitation and four people are out of harm’s way because of it. It’s very admirable.“

For imagery and video of the Hurricane Harvey response, click here.

COAST GUARD NEWS

Coast Guard members and helicopters helped rescue some Asian Americans stranded by the Texas floods.

A bad joke and a so-so apology from "Top Gear"

Jeremy Clarkson awaits a penalty for his tendency to use racist language. 

THIS MAY be old news to some of you, but the ruling issued by Britain's Office of Communications (Ofcam) just came out and it ruled that the BBC violated broadcasting rules when it aired a scene in their show "Top Gear" last spring that included a racial slur.

“After a thorough investigation, Ofcom has found the BBC breached broadcasting rules by including an offensive racial term in Top Gear, which was not justified by context,” an Ofcam spokesperson said. “This was scripted in advance. The BBC failed to take the opportunity, either during filming or post-production, to check whether the word had the potential to offend viewers.”

The episode in question, a special about Myanmar which aired in April, included a pretaped segment featuring host Jeremy Clarkson standing at the end of a bridge over the River Kwai as a local man walked across it.

“That is a proud moment,” Clarkson said, “but there’s a slope on it.”

“Slope” is recognized as an anti-Asian slur, especially in Australia (used mostly in reference to people of Vietnamese descent) and the United States (My addition: where it’s most commonly used against all Asian ethnicities).

“When we used the word ‘slope’ in the recent Top Gear Burma special it was a lighthearted word-play joke referencing both the build quality of the bridge and the local Asian man who was crossing it,” Executive Producer Andy Wilman said in a statement after receiving complaints. “We were not aware at the time, and it has subsequently been brought to our attention, that the word ‘slope’ is considered by some to be offensive and although it might not be widely recognized in the UK, we appreciate that it can be considered offensive to some here and overseas, for example in Australia and the USA.

“If we had known that at the time we would not have broadcast the word in this context and regret any offense caused.”

The excuse sounds kind of lame to me.

This is not a breaking news show where everything is live and people speak out in the moment and you tape whatever you get. It is taped months in advance and scripts are approved months or weeks before the actual taping.

They thought they were being clever but instead they revealed their ignorance and prejudices.

The show, which is known for its "clever" or unusual take on the world, has been in trouble before when it called Mexicans "feckless and flatulent." A month after the Myanmar incident, Clarkson was choosing between two cars and he was using the children's rhyme, "Eenie meenie miiny mo ..." you know how the rest of it goes. The producers at least had the good sense to edit it out of the final product. 

I remember during the Vietnam War when American soldiers returned home and I began hearing that term. They applied it to all Asians, much like the term "gook" used by soldiers in the Philippines-American War when referring to Filipinos became synonymous with all Asians.

I hated the term "slopes" then and I hate it now, no matter the context. Ofcam is supposed to come back with some sort of penalty. Let's hope the penalty is  substantial enough to jog some sense into Clarkson, who reportedly makes millions for his hosting duties.