University of California Linguistic Minority Research Institute

Data from the last two U.S. decennial censuses provide an estimate of the bilingual population. In the 1990 and 2000 censuses, respondents (or parents of children) were asked whether they speak a language other than English at home and, if they do, how well they speak English. Although the data do not reveal how well respondents read and write English, which may be more important for performance in school or at work, they do provide valuable information on the language background of the U.S. and California populations.