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Dear John,

As government agencies across the United States seek to provide information and services to residents who speak languages other than English, it is important to identify the most common languages spoken and map the size of the Limited English Proficient (LEP) population.

A new Practitioner's Corner from MPI's National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy examines the unique methodology that Washington State developed to estimate the languages spoken by its LEP population, drawing on data gathered by Washington State's Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI).

Working with the OSPI data on the primary language spoken at home by students in grades 1-12, which have more language specificity than U.S. Census Bureau information gathering, the Washington State Office of Financial Management (OFM) developed a methodology to estimate the languages spoken by the LEP population at state and county levels, using OSPI, Census, and other data.

The results are used by state agencies to comply with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, plan for the languages they will need to serve, and target resources for language services at state and local levels. The data were also used to inform the development of Washington State's COVID-19 Language Access Plan.

Read the Practitioner's Corner here: www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/language-access-innovative-model-lep-estimates.

For a recent report on the key features of language access laws and policies across the United States, see: www.migrationpolicy.org/research/state-local-language-access-policies.

And for all of MPI's language access work, visit: www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/language-access-translation-and-interpretation-policies-and-practices.

Best regards,

Michelle Mittelstadt
Director of Communications and Public Affairs,
Migration Policy Institute


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The Migration Policy Institute is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit think tank in Washington, D.C. dedicated to analysis of the movement of people worldwide. MPI provides analysis, development and evaluation of migration and refugee policies at the local, national and international levels. MPI's National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy is a crossroads for elected officials, researchers, state and local agency managers, grassroots leaders, local service providers and others who seek to understand and respond to the challenges and opportunities today's high rates of immigration create in local communities.

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