Spanish Speakers in New Jersey

Rebecca Ha, Jorge Lopez, Arianna Martinez, Stephanie Fernandez, Daniel Forte, Martha Gavidia

library(tidyverse)
library(tidycensus)

njSpa <- get_acs(geography = "county", 
              variables = c(foo = "B16001_003"), 
              state = "NJ",
              year = 2015)

After reviewing some census data, we decided to look at a 5 year 2011-2015 dataset focusing on the Spanish speaking population in the state of New Jersey. Our goal was to find where the largest and smallest populations of Spanish speakers were in the state.

Data Chart

The chart below details the Spanish speaking populations in New Jersey per county.

njSpa

Visualizing the Data

The chart was sorted alphabetically so it was hard for the us to identify which county had the highest or the lowest Spanish speaking population at first glance. In order to have a clearer visualization, we reordered the data from highest Spanish speaking population to lowest. Doing this not only made the graph more visually appealing but it quickly answered our question as to where the highest and lowest populations of Spanish speakers were in the state.

ggplot(njSpa, aes(x= reorder(NAME, -estimate), y= estimate )) +
  geom_col() +
  theme_linedraw()+
   xlab('County') +
  ggtitle('Total Estimated Spanish Speakers per County')+
  theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 90, hjust = 1), plot.title =
          element_text(color = "red", face = "bold", hjust = .5))

Findings

We found that the counties in northern New Jersey have a higher Spanish speaking population while the more southern counties have a lower Spanish speaking population. We assumed that the difference was due to the actual total population per county so we looked specifically at Hudson County and Salem County as they were the highest and lowest ends of the graph. Our assumptions were correct as we found that Hudson County was far more heavily populated than Salem and that there was a larger Hispanic/Latino population in Hudson County.

Comparision Between Highest and Lowest County Populations

Population Totals in Hudson County vs. Salem County

Hudson County, New Jersey	Salem County, New Jersey
662,619	65,120

Hispanic/Latino Population in Hudson County vs. Salem County

Hudson County, New Jersey	Salem County, New Jersey
283,504	5,012

This information tells us that only ~7% of Salem County’s population is Hispanic/Latino whereas ~43% of Hudson County’s population is Hispanic/Latino. It is important to note that while not all Spanish speakers are necessarily of Hispanic or Latino background, it is a big indicator of whether or not a person can speak Spanish.

Another interesting find was that Hudson County, with a Spanish speaking population of 236,909, outnumbered the second highest county by 76,449 speakers. This is a big difference considering the difference from Passaic County (the 2nd highest) to Middlesex County (the 6th highest) was only 36,550 speakers, meaning that the 2nd – 6th highest counties with Spanish speakers have a similar Spanish speaking population.