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May Gutchinov tours the famous Grant Avenue in San Francisco’s Chinatown. According to U.S. Census data, San Francisco’s Chinatown ranks as the most linguistically isolated for Asian Pacific Islanders with residents of 74 percent of households speaking little or no English. Photo by The Associated Press.
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California Immigrants Thrive Where Little English is Spoken
By Sandra Marquez
The Associated Press
Ask Odalia Ramirez if she speaks English, and the Guatemala-born housewife will tell you “un poquito,” or a little bit.
But that doesn’t limit Ramirez, 40, from getting by in Pico-Union, a predominantly Central American neighborhood in Los Angeles where you can eat steamed corn “pupusas” stuffed with meat and cheese, put a down payment on a dream retirement home in El Salvador while doing your grocery shopping and have your taxes prepared by a Spanish-speaking accountant.
Newly released U.S. Census data show this is one of the most linguistically isolated enclaves in California. In 66 percent of households, nobody over 14 speaks English.
A section of Chinatown in San Francisco ranks as the most linguistically isolated for Asian Pacific Americans, with residents of 74 percent of households speaking little or no English. Oakland, Los Angeles and other neighborhoods in San Francisco contain the state’s other predominantly Asian-language enclaves.
Los Angeles and Santa Ana have the greatest concentration of isolated Spanish-speaking neighborhoods.
Demographers say the trend of immigrants clustering in neighborhoods with their peers is an age-old phenomenon that has steadily increased in California during the past decade, driven by high levels of immigration and a lack of affordable housing.
California has the nation’s highest percentage of foreign-born residents — 26 percent of the state’s nearly 34 million residents. Almost half of Californians were either born in another country or are the children of foreign-born parents.
“The underlying concept is that people in these households are isolated from America at large, whether they can’t read their cereal box or access the media,” said Andrew Ruppenstein, a research analyst who interprets census data for the California Department of Finance.
But he notes a paradox facing those in transition.
“If they move somewhere where they weren’t among their peers, then they would certainly be linguistically isolated,” he said.
Tucked in major urban centers, neighborhoods such as Pico-Union and Chinatown in San Francisco serve as entry points for the newly arrived, a place to get a foothold in a new society while preserving one’s culture. Immigrant children typically learn English quickly and as adults move to the suburbs, returning to their original neighborhoods to shop at ethnic grocery stores, attend church and connect with their roots.
Living a life entirely in Spanish or Mandarin Chinese can ease a family’s transition to American life, but some say the isolation can become a limitation when immigrants remain monolingual.
“If people in the family do not have anyone speaking English, that is just going to make their adjustment here more difficult,” said James P. Allen, a professor of geography at California State University, Northridge and co-author of Changing Faces, Changing Places: Mapping Southern California.
“My perspective is that immigrants want to do well, and when you are linguistically isolated, that is harder to do,” Allen said.
In San Francisco, the 3,000 mostly Asian immigrants who live in census tract 114 — tucked between Pacific Avenue and Clay Street, and Stockton and Kearny streets — frequent a Chinese hospital, day-care centers and banks that cater to speakers of Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese and Thai.
“The newer generation, the mom and kids will move out and leave the grandparents there. Inside those four streets, it is mostly seniors,” said May Gutchinov, fiscal director for the Chinatown Youth Center.
Gutchinov, originally from Hong Kong, spoke only limited English when she moved to California at age 33. After attending college and improving her English, she moved to the Sunset district of San Francisco.
She said the census definition of linguistic isolation does not necessarily pose a barrier in people’s lives.
“Some people may not speak English, but they know how to get around,” she said.
In Los Angeles, Ramirez, the Guatemalan housewife, said she sometimes has a hard time keeping up with her four children, ranging from ages 13 to 24, who speak mostly English.
“Sometimes I understand them, sometimes I don’t,” said Ramirez, speaking in Spanish, who moved to the United States with her welder husband 15 years ago.
She noticed the language gap last week when her youngest son refused to go to high school on his second day after gang members threatened to beat him up if he didn’t dress and style his hair like they did, she said.
Ramirez said she wanted to discuss the problem with a school administrator, but she had to wait until one of her older sons could request time off from work to translate for her.
“I feel frustrated,” she said.
Though the family is considering moving to a suburb in the San Fernando Valley or Pasadena to escape gangs and drug violence, Ramirez said the change would require her to leave her linguistic comfort zone.
“The best thing is that I can communicate with everyone here,” she said. “But once I leave, it gets difficult for me.”
Ramirez said she would miss leaving behind the Liborio supermarket, an ethnic emporium specializing in sweet breads, banana leaves, sodas and statues of saints from Central America. Inside, Lorena Paz, a sales manager who sells retirement property in El Salvador from her tiny office wedged in front of the cash registers, gets a firsthand look at the neighborhood’s demographics.
According to Paz, most of the restaurant owners, auto mechanics and seamstresses who stop to gaze at the promotional videos flaunting lakeside haciendas in their homeland have lived in the United States between 10 and 20 years. Many of them don’t speak English.
“Almost 90 percent speak only Spanish,” she said. “We explain everything to them in Spanish. All the paperwork is in Spanish.”
Francis Martinez, owner of the Centro Hispano, an income tax, notary and legal services center, said businesses in Pico-Union need Spanish-speaking employees to survive.
But Martinez, who moved to California with her family from Nicaragua 19 years ago and speaks fluent English, said learning a second language is a key to the community’s long-term success.
“Otherwise, they will do the work that our Hispanic brothers traditionally do — working as house cleaners, cooks and gardeners,” she said.
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