The statistical data included in the 2000 City of Jacksonville and the 2007 OnBoard LLC census had mixed results about reflecting the diverse population in our Arabic classes. 

Jacksonville, North Carolina is the home of Marine Corps Base Camp LeJeune and Marine Corps Base Cherry Point and Marine Corps Air Station New River.  Our classes are Marines and Sailors preparing for deployment and the average age in the Arabic school is 18-25, which is the median age in the city. About half of our students live on base and half live out in the city of Jacksonville, also representative of the city’s 2000census.  A majority of my students are married and have children, and the average household in Jacksonville is 4.05 people and 86% of the population has children.  Educational averages presented in the 2007 census are very representative of my classroom.  In a class of 20 students, I usually have 0-1 that did not graduate high school, 13-16 who successfully graduated high school, and 2-3 with some college.  Every so often I will get a student or two with a conferred degree, but it is very rare.  I had one student that completed his Master of Science.  He was a fantastic student!

In contrast, the ratio of White students vs. Non-White is at least 6:1 in my classes, and it is about 2.5:1 in the community.    I am surprised at the low percentage of Hispanics represented in the census-I expected it to be much higher.  In a class of 20 students, I will have 3-6 Hispanic students, and at least one is from Texas (Texas seems to be the home state of choice for quite a few Marines regardless of ethnicity!) and only 7.2% of Jacksonville’s population is Hispanic according to the city’s census.

Please keep in mind that some of this information is seven years old, and the population in this area changes almost completely every two years because of deployments and changes of duty station (Marines usually do not stay at the same duty station more than 2-3 years).  The median year in residency in this area is only 1.73 years and only about 1% actually own homes.