Insights and Analyses

• In 2021, across California, 95% of Latino immigrants, 89% of Asian American immigrants, 84% of Pacific Islander immigrants, 74% of Mixed/other immigrants, 69% of white immigrants, 63% of Black immigrants, and 63% of Native American immigrants ages 5 or older, spoke a language other than English at home.

• In 2021, among the immigrant population ages 5 or older in California, the top ten languages spoken were Spanish, Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese), Filipino/Tagalog, Vietnamese, Korean, Arabic, Hindi, and Persian/Iranian/Farsi.

• Providing targeted interpretation and translation services to California’s diverse immigrant communities is critical in ensuring language justice. Across the state, in 2021, among Latino immigrant headed households 27% were linguistically isolated. Followed by, 25% of Asian American immigrant households, 16% of Mixed/other households, 16% of white immigrant households, 10% of Black immigrant households, and 6% of Pacific Islander immigrant households.

• There have been multiple efforts to resist multilingualism in California, including passing English-only legislation and attempting to enact variations of English-only policies at the local level. In Monterey Park, for instance, city councilmembers debated establishing English as the city’s official language in 1980 and requiring storefront signage to include “modern Latin lettering.” These efforts ultimately failed, in part due to advocacy from such groups as Asian Americans Advancing Justice.

• On the other side of this issue, the city of San Francisco declared that Vietnamese would be one of the city’s official languages in June 2024, along with Spanish, Chinese, and Filipino. Statewide, California voters approved Proposition 58 in 2016 to enact the California Multilingual Education Act, which overturned the English-only instructional requirement and granted public schools more authority over implementing dual immersion programs.

• Comunidades Indigenas en Liderazgo (CIELO) began collecting and reporting data on Indigenous migrants in Los Angeles County through their Undocu-Indigenous Fund, a program started in April 2020 in response to COVID-19. Their data collection efforts showed that the 11,000 fund recipients come from more than 30 distinct Indigenous communities in Mexico and Central America and speak over 17 different languages from 5 different language groups, including Zapoteco, Chinanteco, K’iche’, Ayuujk, and Q’anjob’al.

• During the 2022-2023 school year, data from the California Department of Education showed that approximately 40% of students (or just over 2.3 million) enrolled in public schools spoke a language other than English at home. About 1.1 million students are English learners (19% of public school students). Among English learners, 93% speak one of the following languages: Spanish, Vietnamese, Mandarin (Putonghua), Arabic, Cantonese, Russian, Farsi (Persian), Filipino (Pilipino or Tagalog), Punjabi, and Korean. Yet, in total, the state’s Department of Education   collected data for 108 language groups spoken by English learners.

• Across all different age groups, California was the state with the highest number of Dual Language Learners (DLL) in the 2018-2019 school year who have at least one parent that speaks a language besides English at home. Among children aged eight or younger, 59% (or 2,363,000) were DLLs. The Migration Policy Institute estimates that 43% of these children lived in low-income households between 2018 and 2022.

• Even though DLL children stand to benefit from quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) programs, they are less likely to enroll in these programs compared to non-DLL children. A demographic profile of the DLL population across the U.S. identifies factors, such as household income, that can impact access to quality ECEC programs for DLLs and their families.

• In 2015, San Francisco codified a first-of-its-kind Language Access Ordinance (LAO) into law, instructing all public-serving departments of the City and County of San Francisco to provide services in languages other than English when there is a sizable share of Limited-English proficient (LEP) residents. An assessment by the Language Access Network of San Francisco highlighted areas where the LAO is falling short of providing equitable and quality services to LEP residents. The recommendations provided in the report include strengthening compliance and accountability measures and including a human-centered design approach to include community voices. A 2024 Migration Policy Institute analysis explains this issue more broadly and offers recommendations on how to adequately and effectively expand their language access initiatives across federally supported programs.

Comunidades Indígenas en Liderazgo (CIELO) is an Indigenous woman-led organization collecting data on Indigenous migrants to visibilize their existence and diversity throughout the Los Angeles region.

Founded in 2016, CIELO provides language revitalization, economic solidarity, and COVID-19 vaccine outreach to Indigenous migrant communities. Indigenous migrants face unique social, economic, and cultural challenges, yet they are often invisibilized in the immigrant rights narrative because they are typically excluded from data collection efforts or lumped into the broad Latinx category. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, CIELO started the Undocu-Indigenous Fund, to allocate resources to undocumented Indigenous migrants in Los Angeles. As part of this effort, CIELO also collected demographic information from recipients, capturing the existence and diversity of Indigenous migrants in the Los Angeles region through a story map created with partners from UCLA titled, “We Are Here: Indigenous Diaspora in Los Angeles.” This effort by CIELO emphasizes the need to provide interpretation and translation services in the Indigenous languages spoken in California to reduce barriers that often impede Indigenous migrants from accessing basic, but vital resources.

Most recently, CIELO partnered with the USC Equity Research Institute to publish survey data collected through CIELO’s outreach events between 2021 and 2023. It is important to note that community data gathering efforts offer a distinct avenue to better understand the unique and diverse needs of Indigenous Migrant communities. Their preliminary key findings revealed that Indigenous Migrant communities reside in neighborhoods through L.A. County, but particularly in the cities of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Moreover, at least 25 distinct Indigenous Communities that live throughout L.A. County, speak at least 36 different languages, including Zapoteco, K’iche’, Chinanteco, and Mixe—Indigenous communities may not speak English or Spanish. In addition, during the COVID-19 pandemic, about 35% of survey respondents were considered “essential workers.” Nevertheless, following 2020, Indigenous Migrant communities face challenges in paying for necessities like food and rent. A full report on their findings is forthcoming.

While CIELO does provide informational resources in Indigenous languages through their website and social media, more must be done by public institutions like schools, hospitals, and government agencies in coordination with Indigenous migrant communities and organizations – especially after community trust was eroded by the anti-Indigenous remarks made by officials on the LA City Council and the LA County Labor Federation that were leaked in 2022. As highlighted by CIELO, engaging in language justice for the region’s Indigenous migrants is critical in creating a more welcoming environment for the most marginalized communities. However, as noted by CIELO co-founder Janet Martinez, the City of Los Angeles has not sufficiently funded efforts to improve language access to municipal services – although some City departments are working on improving language access under ED 32. Beyond the L.A. region, there is a dire need for adequate translation services for Indigenous migrants arriving at the border and those navigating immigration court proceedings.

To learn more about CIELO, visit their site here and access their story map here. To learn more about CIELO and ERI’s preliminary results, access the brief here. Read about CIELO’s work in the L.A. Times here. To learn more about the linguistic barriers that Indigenous migrants face at the border read an article by The New Yorker here.