Vietnamese available for county court jurors (Houston, Plano: living, pool, retired)

[Johnhw2]

I lived in Houston for a number of years and am retired to Plano now. My memory once was great but not as reliable now as I turn 70 something... My recall from being called to the huge juror pool for Harris County Courts is that not only are instructions available in English and Spanish as one would assume but the Vietnamese option surprised me. Am I remembering this correctly and if so why Vietnamese? Is it really the third most common language spoken in Houston?


I think the "asian town area" street signs are also shown in both English and Vietnamese as well so it must be highly common but more so than Chinese?


I also wonder how long this has been the case for jurors as I recall a time when I was called to the same court and it was not an option for instructions.

[elnina]

Possibly.
More than 145 different languages are spoken in Houston. Most common non-English languages are Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese, Arabic, and Urdu. In that order.
The city also has the biggest Nigerian community in the U.S.

[Ghost Town]

Vietnamese is No3 language in Texas, second after Spanish.

[Vicman]

Originally Posted by elnina

Possibly.
More than 145 different languages are spoken in Houston. Most common non-English languages are Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese, Arabic, and Urdu. In that order.
The city also has the biggest Nigerian community in the U.S.

Another thing to note is the percentage of speakers of a language who "speak English well". This stuff is from the 2000 census https://web.archive.org/web/20120503...d=2006_4192836

Harris County:

• Spanish or Spanish Creole, 1,106,883 speakers, 46% say they spoke English well
• Vietnamese, 53,311, 37%
• Chinese, 33,003, 50%
• French, French Patois, and Cajun French, 14,883, 85%
• Urdu (Pakistan), 14,595, 72%

216,176,111 in Harris County spoke English only.

City of Houston (which extends partially into Fort Bend and Montgomery counties)

• Spanish or Spanish Creole, 679,292 speakers, 42% say they spoke English well
• Vietnamese, 26,125, 32%
• Chinese, 24,234, 49%
• African languages, 11,603, 72%
• Urdu (Pakistan), 10,669, 70%

938,123 in Houston spoke English only.

[WRM20]

Originally Posted by Vicman

Another thing to note is the percentage of speakers of a language who "speak English well". This stuff is from the 2000 census https://web.archive.org/web/20120503...d=2006_4192836



216,176,111 in Harris County spoke English only.

Is that figure a bit off? That's about 2/3 of the population of the US...

[Vicman]

Originally Posted by WRM20

Is that figure a bit off? That's about 2/3 of the population of the US...

sorry.. it should be 1,961,993. That was the wrong figure..

[Johnhw2]

i knew there were a good number of Vietnamese in Houston metro, for example I understood they have taken over the off shore fishing, family businesses. But I had no idea they out numbered the Chinese speakers. Just the size of the countries and those we knew when living there. I wonder how many other counties in US offer instructions to jurors in Vietnamese.


I know Houston is number 3 in the USA in terms of number of US consulates and embassies from different countries. It is much more international than many outsiders think.