seaskyfan
Mar 20, 2008, 5:49 AM
Article in the PI with some new census estimates.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/355731_census20.html
Seattle area becoming much more international
Census spotlights immigration from other countries
By KERY MURAKAMI AND AUBREY COHEN
P-I REPORTERS
It can be seen on Rainier Avenue South in Seattle with the growing number of taco trucks and pho restaurants. And from the Mexican day laborers lined up looking for work in Belltown, the large numbers of Indians working at Microsoft, and all the televisions tuned in to the Spanish language channel at restaurants such as Coliman in Georgetown.
And it is reflected in U.S. Census numbers released Wednesday night -- the Seattle area is becoming a far more international area.
King County grew by 1.4 percent between July 1, 2006, and July 1, 2007, according to the census, which ranked it 25th among the 100 fastest-growing counties in the country.
Fueling much of the growth were immigrants from other countries -- the 10,681 new residents made up 43 percent of the county's overall population growth of 25,090, which includes births. Of those moving to King County, 83 percent came from other countries.
The rest of the county's growth came from births, and in a reversal of years earlier this decade, more people moved here from other counties than left.
Immigrants moving here from other counties actually made up less of the county's growth than over the past few years. Still, between April 1, 2000, and July 1, 2007, 82,502 people moved to King County from other countries. That made up more than two-thirds of the county's total growth -- 122,241 people -- during that time.
"King County seems to be continuing to get immigrants from overseas, despite what I would have guessed in 2001 (after post-9/11 immigration restrictions)," Chandler Felt, an analyst in King County's budget office, said Wednesday. "It's probably a combination of the presence of jobs, while the rest of the country is on the edge of a recession, and the communities and families that have moved here before."
Indeed, said Eskinder Sarka, director of Horn of African Services, "for many East Africans having relatives here, a connection with an established group would be a big factor" in settling here.
The latest census figures did not break down where immigrants came from, but a Seattle P-I analysis of King County residents who became citizens last year showed the largest groups came from the Ukraine, Philippines, China, India, Vietnam and Ethiopia.
"If you're going to make a move like that, you want to have something familiar," said Sarka, whose social services organization works with the large influx of Ethiopians and other East Africans moving to the Seattle area.
A report from Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels' office in 2006 found that nearly 100,000 foreign-born people lived in the city in 2000. Driven by a number of factors including an influx of political refugees, the number of foreign-born people in Seattle grew by 40 percent in the '90s. The rate was more than five times the city's overall population growth.
And if the trends continue, city officials said there could be as many as 120,000 foreign-born people in Seattle by 2010 -- potentially a fifth of the city's population three years from now.
That would be a very different picture of Seattle than in 1980, when only 11.3 percent of Seattle's population was born in other countries.
To Sarka, who moved to Seattle in 1996, the internationalization of Seattle brings a richer culture. "You want to have a variety of languages and cultures who'd learn from one another," he said. For example, Vietnamese pho restaurants are a favorite of the people working at the African services center, Sarka said.
Still, there are challenges. According to Seattle's study last year, 20 percent of Seattle's total population over 5 speaks a language other than English at home; 9 percent reported speaking English "less than very well."
Though Seattle has used interpreters and translators for years, the city began using them more two years ago when Nickels asked departments to assess the way they handle social justice, said Marilyn Littlejohn, Nickels' human services policy aide.
The city has begun hiring translators to provide some city documents in other languages, including articles in the Department of Neighborhoods newsletter. She said city departments are identifying which documents need to be translated. The court systems and other governments also are doing more to make themselves accessible to immigrants.
At a community meeting last fall, another scene of a more international King County: Hassan Adan, an Ethiopian man who'd slept in a tent in a Kenyan refugee camp with 16 people, was among eight people -- including a Somali man, a Korean woman and a Chinese man -- seated in a circle at the Yesler Community Center.
Before the meeting at the housing development, where 70 percent of residents speak a language other than English, Yesler project manager Judith Kilgore gave translators a pep talk. The advisory board wanted to hear from the residents, she said.
"This is their housing," she said in an interview later. "How much more basic can you get than that?"
The census figures -- an annual update before the next big survey in 2010 -- also found that for the second year in a row, more people moved to King County from another U.S. county than vice versa.
Felt said King County lost more than 70,000 jobs between 2001 and 2004, as the Puget Sound region suffered the worst recession in 30 years.
During that time, more people left the county than those who came here.
"By 2005, we had started to recover, and we are now growing fairly rapidly, so the one-year change from 2006 to 2007 is a healthy increase of both international and internal migration," Felt said.
Snohomish and King counties were up by 11 percent and 6.9 percent respectively since 2000 -- good for 28th and 37th place among the largest 100 counties.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/355731_census20.html
Seattle area becoming much more international
Census spotlights immigration from other countries
By KERY MURAKAMI AND AUBREY COHEN
P-I REPORTERS
It can be seen on Rainier Avenue South in Seattle with the growing number of taco trucks and pho restaurants. And from the Mexican day laborers lined up looking for work in Belltown, the large numbers of Indians working at Microsoft, and all the televisions tuned in to the Spanish language channel at restaurants such as Coliman in Georgetown.
And it is reflected in U.S. Census numbers released Wednesday night -- the Seattle area is becoming a far more international area.
King County grew by 1.4 percent between July 1, 2006, and July 1, 2007, according to the census, which ranked it 25th among the 100 fastest-growing counties in the country.
Fueling much of the growth were immigrants from other countries -- the 10,681 new residents made up 43 percent of the county's overall population growth of 25,090, which includes births. Of those moving to King County, 83 percent came from other countries.
The rest of the county's growth came from births, and in a reversal of years earlier this decade, more people moved here from other counties than left.
Immigrants moving here from other counties actually made up less of the county's growth than over the past few years. Still, between April 1, 2000, and July 1, 2007, 82,502 people moved to King County from other countries. That made up more than two-thirds of the county's total growth -- 122,241 people -- during that time.
"King County seems to be continuing to get immigrants from overseas, despite what I would have guessed in 2001 (after post-9/11 immigration restrictions)," Chandler Felt, an analyst in King County's budget office, said Wednesday. "It's probably a combination of the presence of jobs, while the rest of the country is on the edge of a recession, and the communities and families that have moved here before."
Indeed, said Eskinder Sarka, director of Horn of African Services, "for many East Africans having relatives here, a connection with an established group would be a big factor" in settling here.
The latest census figures did not break down where immigrants came from, but a Seattle P-I analysis of King County residents who became citizens last year showed the largest groups came from the Ukraine, Philippines, China, India, Vietnam and Ethiopia.
"If you're going to make a move like that, you want to have something familiar," said Sarka, whose social services organization works with the large influx of Ethiopians and other East Africans moving to the Seattle area.
A report from Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels' office in 2006 found that nearly 100,000 foreign-born people lived in the city in 2000. Driven by a number of factors including an influx of political refugees, the number of foreign-born people in Seattle grew by 40 percent in the '90s. The rate was more than five times the city's overall population growth.
And if the trends continue, city officials said there could be as many as 120,000 foreign-born people in Seattle by 2010 -- potentially a fifth of the city's population three years from now.
That would be a very different picture of Seattle than in 1980, when only 11.3 percent of Seattle's population was born in other countries.
To Sarka, who moved to Seattle in 1996, the internationalization of Seattle brings a richer culture. "You want to have a variety of languages and cultures who'd learn from one another," he said. For example, Vietnamese pho restaurants are a favorite of the people working at the African services center, Sarka said.
Still, there are challenges. According to Seattle's study last year, 20 percent of Seattle's total population over 5 speaks a language other than English at home; 9 percent reported speaking English "less than very well."
Though Seattle has used interpreters and translators for years, the city began using them more two years ago when Nickels asked departments to assess the way they handle social justice, said Marilyn Littlejohn, Nickels' human services policy aide.
The city has begun hiring translators to provide some city documents in other languages, including articles in the Department of Neighborhoods newsletter. She said city departments are identifying which documents need to be translated. The court systems and other governments also are doing more to make themselves accessible to immigrants.
At a community meeting last fall, another scene of a more international King County: Hassan Adan, an Ethiopian man who'd slept in a tent in a Kenyan refugee camp with 16 people, was among eight people -- including a Somali man, a Korean woman and a Chinese man -- seated in a circle at the Yesler Community Center.
Before the meeting at the housing development, where 70 percent of residents speak a language other than English, Yesler project manager Judith Kilgore gave translators a pep talk. The advisory board wanted to hear from the residents, she said.
"This is their housing," she said in an interview later. "How much more basic can you get than that?"
The census figures -- an annual update before the next big survey in 2010 -- also found that for the second year in a row, more people moved to King County from another U.S. county than vice versa.
Felt said King County lost more than 70,000 jobs between 2001 and 2004, as the Puget Sound region suffered the worst recession in 30 years.
During that time, more people left the county than those who came here.
"By 2005, we had started to recover, and we are now growing fairly rapidly, so the one-year change from 2006 to 2007 is a healthy increase of both international and internal migration," Felt said.
Snohomish and King counties were up by 11 percent and 6.9 percent respectively since 2000 -- good for 28th and 37th place among the largest 100 counties.