Cleveland Ethnics

Growing up in Cleveland, my friend Alex and I have grown to associate ethnic groups with certain areas of Cleveland. At Ohio State, we have been exposed to lots of other people from Cleveland and generally, our experiences confirm the stereotypes of our youth. We've also found that other Cleveland kids tend to share our predispositions.

Until recently, we had no empirical evidence to support this Cleveland lore. That is no longer the case. By breaking down census data by zip code via MLA.org's Language Map, we can isolate how many people speak a language in each area of Cleveland. We can now provide scientific evidence identifying where different ethnic groups live in Greater Cleveland.

The East Side is full of Italians...

And Russians too.

A search for Hebrew speakers confirms the obvious about Beachwood and Shaker.

Se hable espanol en Lorain, Old Brooklyn, y Painesville.

Slavic Village and Parma are full of Poles.

Cleveland is also full of Slavs. Unfortunately the census tracks "Serbo-Croatian" and does not distinguish between the two dialects. Regardless, everyone knows Parma is home to the Serbs while Eastlake is home to the Croatians. It's probably a good thing that the valley separates the two.

What language break down is this?

Stumped?

This map confirms two things:

(1) Geauga County is full of Amish folks

(2) Despite shunning indoor plumbing, electricity, and cars, Amish folks are apparently down with taking the Census.

(And for the city slickers of cyberspace who couldn't figure this one out, Amish folks speak a dialect of German)