Does one have to be bilingual in Portland? (Beaverton, Hillsboro: construction, middle school)

[Jen54]

And if so, which language? In california, obviously, spanish is the number one bilingual language required for a job... what about Portland? Anyone?

Thanks!

p.s. edited to add specifically for jobs as a requirement for hire.

[John Shaft]

Not mandatory, but being able to speak tweaker helps a lot.

[Jen54]

hahahahahahahahahaha

[hamellr]

I read tweaker as Twitter and that is even more true.

If you're working in the health field or construction I'd say it's a must. But for most other jobs it's not a requirement although I have been seeing it as a "nice to have" on quite a few job boards.

[PDX_LAX]

Short answer: no.

Portland is a majority white city. There is a huge hispanic presence in the southern/western suburbs like Hillsboro and Beaverton, but even there it isn't mandatory.

[Tiger Beer]

Portland - the need is nearly non-existant unless in some occupation that deals directly with illegal immigrants.

Even the Hispanic presense noticed above is incredibly small by any other city's standards. I think the non-white population is so low in itself, let alone a sizeable group of one particular non-group white to have a strong linguistic impact on the area.

I forget the statistics, but Portland is probably one of the most monolingual nearly homogeneous ethnically white cities in the U.S. of cities of its size.

[backdrifter]

Originally Posted by Tiger Beer

Portland - the need is nearly non-existant unless in some occupation that deals directly with illegal immigrants.

Even the Hispanic presense noticed above is incredibly small by any other city's standards. I think the non-white population is so low in itself, let alone a sizeable group of one particular non-group white to have a strong linguistic impact on the area.

I forget the statistics, but Portland is probably one of the most monolingual nearly homogeneous ethnically white cities in the U.S. of cities of its size.

Yeah, out of the top... 25 or 30 American cities, Portland is the most non-Hispanic Caucasian.

[Neal2009]

Yes, one must be fluent in Hungarian in order to live here.

[Nell Plotts]

As others have mentioned, the need for a language other than English depends on the workforce and/or customers served. There are jobs where a second language is required, usually Spanish. The most common Chinese language spoken by locals is Cantonese, but in business it is Mandarin. If you are an expat hired by an Oregon employer, in addition to Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Japanese is handy to know. Greek, Norwegian, Hungarian are usually learned at home.

The ability to speak a language in addition to English is appreciated by employers.

[PDX_LAX]

Originally Posted by backdrifter

Yeah, out of the top... 25 or 30 American cities, Portland is the most non-Hispanic Caucasian.

Among city propers maybe. But you have to look at the metropolitan area. Washington County (where I'm from) has a huge hispanic presence. The public middle school I attended was approximately 1/3 hispanic, most of whom spoke minimal english.

If you compare Portland's metro to, say, Seattle's you'll see that Portland has a far more represented hispanic population.

As of 2000 (Portland's Latino population has exploded since this information was released):

Washington County: 11.17% Hispanic or Latino
Multnomah County: 7.5%
Pierce County: 5.51%
King County: 5.4%
Clackamas County: 5%
Snohmoish County: 4.72%