Foundation takes snapshot of new arrivals
By Rick Farrant in The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette
Fort Wayne and Allen County are among the national leaders in the percentage of certain languages spoken in households, a report released this week by the U.S. English Foundation revealed.
The Fort Wayne Metropolitan Statistical Area, defined as Allen, Wells and Whitley counties, ranked first among 203 metropolitan areas in the percentage of people speaking Burmese, 10th for those speaking German and 20th for those speaking Serbo-Croatian, said the foundation, which promotes English comprehension and literacy.
Of 3,141 counties studied by the foundation, Allen ranked fifth in the percentage of people speaking Burmese, 13th for those speaking Macedonian and 46th for those speaking Serbo-Croatian.
By far, Spanish is the second-most spoken language in the region behind English, but foundation and local officials say it is the other languages that illustrate the vast linguistic diversity of the Fort Wayne area. Local officials also note that the study was based on an analysis of the 2000 census and the area?s diversity has grown in the past four years.
The trend, perhaps fueled by the Fort Wayne area's accommodating nature, presents both advantages and challenges, local officials say.
"It allows our students to have exposure to students all over the world, and that has got to be a good thing," said Greg Slyford, manager of academic support for Fort Wayne Community Schools. "But it is challenging because of the nature of the demands that are required of a diverse population."
Among those demands is teaching English to students from other countries while at the same time preserving their native languages and cultures.
The process, he and others say, is costly.
Of the roughly 32,000 FWCS students, Slyford said, 3,200 are classified as language minority students, which generally means they have either successfully completed English-as-a-second language courses, are taking them, or have opted to not take them. There are 1,300 FWCS students currently enrolled in ESL classes.
A year ago, about 1,000 FWCS students were enrolled in ESL classes.
The numbers are also growing at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, said Connell Nelson, director of International Student Services.
Although he did not have comparative statistics, he said the university now has more than 150 foreign students attending on study visas and more than 200 non-English speaking immigrants and refugees.
When the foreign students first arrive, he said, many need to take ESL courses to help with their school work and assist them in getting employment so they can support their education.
Hospitals have also had to make adjustments to meet the needs of non-English-speaking people.
In 2001, St. Joseph Hospital contracted with a service called Intrepretphone at the Texas Medical Center in Houston so physicians and nurses locally could communicate with patients speaking languages other than English.
Jernice Watson, director of the St. Joseph Hospital Emergency Department, and Barbara Schoppman, vice president of community and adult services, said interpreters are usually on the line within seconds.
Watson said the number of non-English-speaking patients has doubled in recent years. It used to be that most non-English-speaking patients spoke Spanish, she said, but now the hospital is seeing a rise in Burmese and Laotian speakers.
Fort Wayne's police department is another agency that has taken a step toward removing communication barriers, although public information officer Michael Joyner said the agency is behind the curve.
The department about a year ago purchased an electronic mobile translator. The ultimate goal, Joyner said, is to hire staff members who can speak other languages.
"Our department needs to look like our community," he said, "and we are diligently working toward that eventuality."
Numbers from the U.S. English Foundation and local statistics don't align perfectly. The foundation reported that 43 languages are spoken in the Fort Wayne area. FWCS's Slyford said more than 70 languages are spoken in the schools.
Slyford said the difference might be because of a number of things, such as varying distinctions between a language and a dialect or simply that the number of languages and dialects have grown rapidly.
IPFW's Nelson would agree with the latter. He said the university is seeing a burgeoning number of students from the African nations of Kenya, Nigeria and Ethiopia.
Nelson believes the language diversity in the Fort Wayne area stems largely from local residents' propensity to welcome people from other countries.
"What we do to accommodate in terms of services is above and beyond what a lot of cities are doing," he said.
There are also special circumstances that bolster the diversity, and one of those is the long-standing efforts of Catholic Charities to resettle Burmese in Fort Wayne.
Debbie Schmidt, Catholic Charities executive director, isn't sure why Fort Wayne was initially chosen as a Burmese resettlement site in the early 1990s, but the influx has snowballed.
Fort Wayne became better prepared to handle Burmese refugees, she said, leading the federal government to send even more. At the same time, some Burmese living in their native Myanmar began asking to be reunited with relatives already resettled in Fort Wayne.
In the past four years, Schmidt said, 346 Burmese have been resettled in Fort Wayne. She expects 100 more to arrive this year.
Like other local organizations, Catholic Charities provides ESL classes for the people it serves.
And like the other organizations, the emphasis is not on erasing the language and culture of newcomers; it's on adding English to their bank of knowledge.
Schmidt said that despite all the inherent work and cost involved in helping people from other countries feel at home, having a language-diverse community is enriching.
The diversity is reflected in her own agency, where 15 languages are spoken.
"It gives us," she said, "a broad perspective of our world."
Words spoken
This is how the Fort Wayne area is ranked nationally for the percentage of people speaking certain languages in 2000, followed by the percentages and the number of people:
1. Burmese -- 0.11 percent; 410
10. German -- 1.2 percent; 4,200
20. Serbo-Croatian -- 0.13 percent; 480
53. Laotian -- 0.07 percent; 260
54. Greek -- 0.12 percent; 415
80. Hindi -- 0.07 percent; 260
82. English -- 93.3 percent; 336,160
106. Spanish -- 3.3 percent; 11,965
108. French -- 0.4 percent; 1,455
146. Chinese -- 0.11 percent; 400
Source: U.S. English Foundation