Sunday, October 25, 2015

Immigrant population in Shawnee County nearly doubles since 2000

Foreign-born population remains a small minority in the Topeka region, but since 2000 the area has seen an influx of immigrants. According to the Topeka Capital-Journal, the immigrant population has grown from 4,554 in 2000 to 8,124 in 2013, which is a 7percent increase over the period, while the overall population has increased from 169,871 to 178,378, or just a 5percent increase over the same period. In other words, out of the 8,507 overall increase, 3,570 or about 4percent is from the increase in foreign-born residents.

The immigrant population is quite diverse, with nearly 60percen from Latin America and 20percent of Asian origin, and also in two extremes when it comes to education level: on the one end are those who have not completed high-school, and on the other are those with college education and beyond. According to the figures reported, immigrants were actually more likely to be employed than native Kansas residents with over 69percent reporting they had a job (Capital-Journal did not report what the comparable number is for native residents).

The increase in foreign-born residents has led to a growth in the English-language learning programs, with the Topeka USD 501 recently hiring 19 new teachers. The ELL student body has risen from 851 in 2010 to 1,750 in 2015, more than doubling in a span of five years. The majority of the student population counts Spanish as their native tongue, but there are other students from all kinds of cultural background.

Topeka area is not known for being the most international area, the recent growth in immigrant population is a welcoming sign of globalization and bringing in different cultures from around the world. The influx of these residents is also providing much needed labor: the number of working-age Americans aged 35-44 has been on the decrease in Topeka in recent years. The integration of Topeka's newest residents to the local community will be the key to continued prosperity and growth in Shawnee County and the rest of Kansas.

18 comments:

  1. I applaud you for your research that was done for this article. You clearly spent a lot of time planning out the flow of this article and getting a lot of facts! The first paragraph is a little overwhelming with all of the numbers so my only recommendation is to break up the first paragraph so the numbers do not overpower the point you are making. Very well done!

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  2. I agree with Bree! I also applaud you for your research. That had to have been very time consuming, but the time you spent on it clearly shows. The only changes I would recommend are breaking the sentences up, so they are not run-on sentences. Overall, great job!

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  3. As the other girls said the stats in the first paragraph are a lot, maybe you should just pick the one that has the most impact?

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  4. Very informative story. Make sure when you are writing about percents, you spell out percent instead of using the symbol.

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  5. Bree said it right! Kudos to you for going above and beyond to do the research that is required for this article.

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  6. Great job for doing research like everyone else has said! I noticed with all your percents there needs to be a space between the number and the word percent.

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    1. I agree with Heather, every time you talked about percentages the lack of space threw me off. Simple AP style fix.

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  7. When writing for a newspaper never quote something another newspaper said.. it's just common courtesy. Rewrite your headline and make it more concise. Try "Immigrant population doubles in Shawnee County." The word "doubles" will seize people's attention.

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  8. Job well done on all your research! Other than a few grammatical errors, such as the spacing with your statistics, this was a very informative story!

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  9. good job with the research and very informative.

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  10. put a space between the 4 and percent.

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  11. It's clear a lot of research went in to this - that really helps your credibility. Really well done.

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  12. It's clear a lot of research went in to this - that really helps your credibility. Really well done.

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  13. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  14. Nicely written and interesting to know.

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  15. The facts that were used in this article are great. I like the interesting topic that you picked. I think breaking up sentences and paragraphs will help this article be easier to read

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