Areas in the US that are not majority English-speaking

[hotdogPi]

Most of Lawrence, Massachusetts (population 76k; 7 square miles) is about 50/50 Spanish and English; it seems like Spanish is slightly more common in and near downtown, although I cannot confirm this, as it seems to be very close to 50/50. Road signs are still entirely in English. Signs displayed inside and outside businesses are often in both languages, and some of them are Spanish only. The Hispanic ethnicities are mostly from the Caribbean, with a lot of them being Dominicans.

Interestingly, there is a sharp divide at I-495; the small section of Lawrence inside* I-495 has almost no Spanish speakers. Friendly's inside I-495 is almost entirely English, while former Denny's outside I-495 and adjacent businesses are closer to 65/35 English/Spanish. Both Friendly's and former Denny's are only a few hundred feet from I-495. This sharp line does not exist to the north; crossing from Lawrence to Methuen does not make a sudden difference; it's a gradual change over several miles.

*"Inside" relative to Boston. I-495 has a curve here that makes "inside" a bit misleading in this area.

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Are there any other areas in the United States that you know of that are not majority English-speaking? It doesn't have to be a full city or town, but it needs to be more than just a city block or a few households. Is there a sharp line, or is it gradual? Is there a specific reason why this area has another language more common, but surrounding areas are not? (I don't know the answer to the last question for Lawrence, MA.)

[jwolfer]

Most of Lawrence, Massachusetts (population 76k; 7 square miles) is about 50/50 Spanish and English; it seems like Spanish is slightly more common in and near downtown, although I cannot confirm this, as it seems to be very close to 50/50. Road signs are still entirely in English. Signs displayed inside and outside businesses are often in both languages, and some of them are Spanish only. The Hispanic ethnicities are mostly from the Caribbean, with a lot of them being Dominicans.

Interestingly, there is a sharp divide at I-495; the small section of Lawrence inside* I-495 has almost no Spanish speakers. Friendly's inside I-495 is almost entirely English, while former Denny's outside I-495 and adjacent businesses are closer to 65/35 English/Spanish. Both Friendly's and former Denny's are only a few hundred feet from I-495. This sharp line does not exist to the north; crossing from Lawrence to Methuen does not make a sudden difference; it's a gradual change over several miles.

*"Inside" relative to Boston. I-495 has a curve here that makes "inside" a bit misleading in this area.

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Are there any other areas in the United States that you know of that are not majority English-speaking? It doesn't have to be a full city or town, but it needs to be more than just a city block or a few households. Is there a sharp line, or is it gradual? Is there a specific reason why this area has another language more common, but surrounding areas are not? (I don't know the answer to the last question for Lawrence, MA.)

Miami-Dade County FL is majority Hispanic.  You can live your whole life and not speak English. I have talked to people who are trying to learn English and the have to go out of their way to converse in English

Z981

[hotdogPi]

Miami-Dade County FL is majority Hispanic.  You can live your whole life and not speak English. I have talked to people who are trying to learn English and the have to go out of their way to converse in English

Z981

Just because the county is majority-Hispanic doesn't mean the entire county is. Do you know which parts of the county are more Spanish-speaking than English-speaking, and/or if it extends slightly into another county?

Also, majority-Hispanic doesn't always mean majority Spanish-speaking (although by going what you said, it's definitely an example).

[Max Rockatansky]

Guadalupe in Arizona is primarily Spanish speaking.  I want to say the town is only about 6,000 residents but essentially is surrounded by Tempe.  It feels like you entered Sonora just running down street on Guadalupe Road.  I used to live a block over to the east, suffice to say it was quite the contrast.  I believe many of the communities in the Navajo and Hopi Nations are also primiarly not English speaking as well. 

[US71]

I speak primarily American, myself. Unless I'm looking for the Loo

[kalvado]

Miami-Dade County FL is majority Hispanic.  You can live your whole life and not speak English. I have talked to people who are trying to learn English and the have to go out of their way to converse in English

Z981

Just because the county is majority-Hispanic doesn't mean the entire county is. Do you know which parts of the county are more Spanish-speaking than English-speaking, and/or if it extends slightly into another county?

Also, majority-Hispanic doesn't always mean majority Spanish-speaking (although by going what you said, it's definitely an example).

Florida is 27.5% spanish-speaking and 72.5% English-speaking per census.
Miami-Dade county is 72.3% non-English

And a nice map: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/national/us-language-map/

[hotdogPi]

Miami-Dade County FL is majority Hispanic.  You can live your whole life and not speak English. I have talked to people who are trying to learn English and the have to go out of their way to converse in English

Z981

Just because the county is majority-Hispanic doesn't mean the entire county is. Do you know which parts of the county are more Spanish-speaking than English-speaking, and/or if it extends slightly into another county?

Also, majority-Hispanic doesn't always mean majority Spanish-speaking (although by going what you said, it's definitely an example).

Florida is 27.5% spanish-speaking and 72.5% English-speaking per census.
Miami-Dade county is 72.3% non-English

And a nice map: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/national/us-language-map/

You can't break it at the county level. Sometimes part of a county will be much different from another part of the same county.

[kalvado]

You can't break it at the county level. Sometimes part of a county will be much different from another part of the same county.

Yes of course - but census data goes down to county level only, and even county data is incomplete.

[Stephane Dumas]

Way back in time, besides Lawrence but also in Woonsocket RI, Manchester NH. There was lots of French speaking people mainly French-Canadians who immigrated in the US in the late 19th Century/early 20th Century to work in the textile mills. And near the Canadian border along Quebec along part of Aroostock country, Maine south of Edmunston area in New Brunswick. There's some small French-speaking communities.

[jp the roadgeek]

I would think Arcadian French speakers outnumbers English speakers in most of Aroostock County, ME.

In my area, it's mostly on a neighborhood by neighborhood basis.  There are many areas in cities that are more Spanish speaking than English.  In the Broad Street area of New Britain, CT, and in parts of Chicopee, MA, Polish speakers outnumber English speakers.  And Fall River, MA and Waterbury, CT both have large Portuguese populations with neighborhoods where Portuguese is the dominant language. Census data from a county level will not show these as significant, though, so you really have to drill down or know the area to discover this. 

[bing101]

http://www.laalmanac.com/population/po47.php

Here is the language demographics of Los Angeles County.

https://statisticalatlas.com/county/California/Sacramento-County/Languages

https://statisticalatlas.com/county/California/Solano-County/Languages

https://statisticalatlas.com/county/California/San-Francisco-County/Languages

and a few others from the Norcal area examples of other languages

Spanish, Chinese and Tagalog are the dominant non English languages in these counties.

[US 41]

Presidio, TX is primarily Spanish speaking. I also noticed that when I was in the Laredo area a lot of people down there also speak a lot of Spanish. Not a surprise though with them being so close to Mexico.

[oscar]

The OP didn't exclude Indian reservations. Tribal languages may predominate in some of them, though I can't point to specific ones, though Max mentioned two of them.

The west coast of the Kenai Peninsula of Alaska has pockets of Russian speakers in small communities. I can't provide details, but the Safeway I visited in Homer in 1994 had some Russian signage alongside the usual ones in English.

A dialect of the Hawaiian language reportedly predominates on Hawaii's Niihau island. The privately-owned island (basically a big cattle ranch) puts the unwelcome mat out for tourists, except a select few allowed to take a helicopter to a remote location far away from the island's residents, limiting their contact with the outside world. Molokai, another one of Hawaii's seven major islands and with a much larger population than Niihau, seems to have a lot of Hawaiian speakers, but I hesitate to call that language "dominant" without a deeper dive into Census data than I have time for this week. Tourists can definitely get by with no fluency in Hawaiian.

[empirestate]

The Bronx is not a majority English-speaking area; in fact, no language holds a majority there. Probably more to the point, however, is that English is not the most widely-spoken language, either; Spanish is.

[jwolfer]

In diverse places like NYC and LA. English is the common language for all immigrant groups.. I work with Americans, puerto Ricans, Dominicans, and  Brazilians... Our patients come from.other countries as well.. English is the common language for us all.. some speak better than others

Z981

[DandyDan]

There are isolated cities on the Great Plains where they process cattle where the majority of people are presumably Spanish speaking. The two cities I knew about in Nebraska are Schuyler and Lexington. In Iowa, Denison is headed in that direction. A good chunk of South Omaha is primarily Spanish speaking.

[ghYHZ]

What about the French speaking areas of Louisiana?.....where the descendant of the Acadians (todays Cajuns) live who were deported from Nova Scotia in the expulsion of 1755.

The Acadians of Maine's Aroostook County along the border with New Brunswick are distinct from the French-Canadien Quebecois who settled in the milltowns of Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rode Island.

[Rothman]

Downtown Holyoke, MA is probably majority puertoriquenos.

I also wonder about the German areas of Texas.

[english si]

Didn't all the German areas in the US drop it about 100 years ago for obvious reasons? If not, then 77 years ago.

Other than the Amish, of course.

I speak primarily American, myself. Unless I'm looking for the Loo

Indeed, no parts of the US speak English.

I doubt you look for the loo in the US, as people will look at you blankly.

[Rothman]

Didn't all the German areas in the US drop it about 100 years ago for obvious reasons? If not, then 77 years ago.

Other than the Amish, of course.

I speak primarily American, myself. Unless I'm looking for the Loo

Indeed, no parts of the US speak English.

I doubt you look for the loo in the US, as people will look at you blankly.

Nah.  People will just laugh at you if you ask where the loo is.

[kphoger]

I made this a few years ago for some reason or another.

[Desert Man]

California is linguistically diverse, esp. Spanish-speaking areas of Eastern and Southern Los Angeles as well the barrios surrounding downtown. The border areas of San Diego, Imperial valley and Riverside county (technically doesn't touch Mexico) have the state's largest Spanish-speaking percentage communities. And also Spanish-speaking majority towns in the Central coast (Ventura, Santa Barbara, Monterey, San Benito and Santa Cruz counties) and Central valleys (San Joaquin in the south, Sacramento in the north). Over 300 languages are spoken in CA, a great many in L.A. and San Francisco bay area.

[kphoger]

For what it's worth, as of 2016, roughly 1 in 7 Americans speaks Spanish at home.

As of 2010, two metropolitan areas have more than a 50% Spanish-speaking population:
McAllen—Edinburg—Mission, TX @ 84.3%
El Paso, TX @ 72.4%

Miami-Dade County FL is majority Hispanic.  You can live your whole life and not speak English. I have talked to people who are trying to learn English and the have to go out of their way to converse in English

Z981

Just because the county is majority-Hispanic doesn't mean the entire county is. Do you know which parts of the county are more Spanish-speaking than English-speaking, and/or if it extends slightly into another county?

Also, majority-Hispanic doesn't always mean majority Spanish-speaking (although by going what you said, it's definitely an example).

Florida is 27.5% spanish-speaking and 72.5% English-speaking per census.
Miami-Dade county is 72.3% non-English

And a nice map: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/national/us-language-map/

You can't break it at the county level. Sometimes part of a county will be much different from another part of the same county.

The Miami—Fort Lauderdale—Pompano Beach metropolitan area is 39.8% Spanish-speaking as of 2010.

[Road Hog]

It takes about three generations of immigrants for the native language to disappear. The children of immigrants are bilingual, but the grandchildren are normally fully assimilated and never learn the mother tongue.

With Spanish, however, the constant influx of new immigrants keeps the language viable in their communities. You don't have a surge of migration that dwindles after a decade or two, like Italians or Germans or Scandinavians. The Latino descendants who stay in predominantly Latino areas like South Texas, speak English in school but maintain longer exposure to Spanish at home or in their neighborhoods, and therefore are more likely to remain bilingual over later generations.

[Desert Man]

The Southwestern US was once Spanish and Mexican land, therefore you have 400 years of Spanish spoken in these areas. In California, along the El Camino Real trail which connects 21 out of 23 Missions, include largely Hispanic towns of Santa Ana in the OC, San Fernando near LA, and to some extent San Luis Obispo and Santa Rosa in Sonoma county-Napa valley area. And the cities attracted so much immigration from Latin America, Long Beach, San Bernardino and Bakersfield in So CA, and Oakland, Richmond and San Jose have large Hispanic/Latino populations (further south, the more towns with majorities being from Mexico), they tend to be mostly bilingual with 3rd-5th generations are English dominant.