1 in 3 New Jersey Residents Don’t Speak English at Home – Problem With This? [POLL]

The “Tower of Babel” has arrived at our shores.

It should come as no surprise that English is not the first language spoken in about 1 of 3 New Jersey homes.

But are we ok with this trend?

Bearing in mind that there’s always been an immigrant population who’s first language has not been English.

My father’s first 5 years were spent speaking Italian, which was all that was spoken in their home.

When he was starting kindergarten, his teacher posted a note on his shirt reading “Speak English Only to this Child!”

My grandmother, who didn’t speak or read English didn’t know what it meant, so when she asked my father what it was, he told he it must have been a good conduct medal!

Encouraging people to speak English over their native language at home: how do you vote?

Take the poll below.
According to the report,

New Jersey has the fourth-highest percentage of residents in the country who speak a language other than English at home, according to a new census report.

About 30.4 percent of Garden State residents don't use English as their primary language in their residence, well above the national average of 20.8 percent, an American Community Census report revealed.

The three states with a larger percentage of people speaking something besides English are California (43.6 percent), New Mexico (36.5 percent) and Texas (34.7 percent), the report said.

Nearly 40 percent of people in the New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island metropolitan area speak another language, one of the highest percentages in the country. About half speak Spanish, 29 percent speak "other Indo-European languages" and 15.7 percent converse in Asian-Pacific languages.

Of the 2,520,761 people in New Jersey who don't speak English at home, 57.4 percent said they speak English "very well," and 20.7 percent claim to speak it "well." About 6.4 percent said they speak no English.

There are 22 states where fewer than 10 percent of people speak a language besides English.
The Census Bureau began compiling the information in 2011, but the report was released this week.

I’m not surprised at the numbers for New Jersey.

Immigrants from many parts of the world make Jersey their home.

Vast numbers of Latin Americans, Chinese, Indians, Portuguese, Russians, Poles, Italians, and others too numerous to mention not speaking English in the home.

Tower of Babel indeed!