Texas in a Changing World
Has the State of Texas taken sufficient action to ensure that its school and college-going populations are adequately prepared to enter an increasingly globalized knowledge-based economy at the appropriate level of skill and competence? Will the next generation of business and community leaders be able to deal with a globalized world on its own terms? Are Texas businesses more likely to turn to graduates of Texas schools and universities for their future needs, or are they going to have to recruit new staff from out of state and country? In particular, will young people graduating from Texas schools and universities a decade from now have the necessary linguistic skills and cultural competencies to deal with employers, employees, clients, investors, visitors, and friends who are just as likely to be based in China, Argentina or Poland as they are in San Antonio?
Economy
Fifteen percent of the state’s output is now exported, and one in five manufacturing jobs is linked to overseas demand. The State of Texas is increasingly operating in an environment where knowledge of and access to international markets are key drivers of economic well-being. What is more surprising is that international demand for Texas products is no longer concentrated in traditional markets such as its immediate neighbor to the south, Mexico. While Mexico is still the largest overseas purchaser of goods and services from Texas, taking up to a third of its total exports in 2006, one quarter of Texas gross domestic product is now exported to Asia. 12% of Texas exports go to the European Union and 11% to the rest of Latin America.
This data tells only one side of the story, of course. Texas receives approximately 8 million foreign tourists annually, and they pump an estimated $4.9 billion into the state economy. World-renowned medical facilities in Houston and Dallas attract experts and patients from around the world. The high technology hub of Austin is directly linked to offshore facilities around the world, especially in Asia. The service sector in Texas, including tourism, health care, finance, law, and information services, shows increasing numbers of clients based overseas, based on comparisons with even a few years ago. These remarkable figures make all too vivid the real and positive impacts of a globalized world on the state of Texas, a trend that shows no sign of declining.
Demographics
Beyond economics, the demographic profile of the state’s population has also changed significantly in the last decade. Texas now has a ‘majority of minorities,’ as some put it. Over half the population of the state is non-white: Texas now has the nation’s third largest African-American and Asian-American populations. With this influx of new migrants and ethnic communities has also come considerable economic gain for the state. Asian populations in Texas, to take one example, operate 78,000 businesses generating $20.6 billion annually. In Houston alone, there are 16,000 Asian businesses that produce revenues of $5.5 billion each year. The point of these statistics is to show that Texas has changed rapidly in the last decade, and the weight of international factors, especially in its commerce and its demography, is growing significantly. These trends are irreversible in the short term: the question is whether or not Texas is ready to take advantage of its size, location, natural resources, and human capital skills and move to the next level of integration with the world economy. More soberingly, can the state afford not to?
Roadmap to the Future
As many economists have noted, among the most significant constraints on long-term growth in today’s globalized, knowledge-based economy is intellectual capital. Are we training our young people, tomorrow’s leaders, in a way that will allow the state to continue to benefit from this new world? With support from the Departments of Defense, Labor, and Commerce, the Texas Language Summit, led by the South Asia Institute, prepared a forward-looking report that directly addresses one vital element of this larger issue, i.e., the question of linguistic and cultural competence. This report, written in the form of a roadmap to the future, was prepared based on data collected over six months in 2007 from a survey of Texas business and government agencies and in consultation with stakeholders from business, government, and the education community. The survey data made clear that linguistic skills and cultural knowledge are key to maintaining Texas’ competitive edge in the business environment of the future. While English is still considered the international language of commerce, the majority of survey respondents felt that not knowing other languages worked against U.S. business in the long run.
The issue is how to get the multilingual, culturally competent workforce that will be required. The Texas Language Roadmap identifies constraints preventing that from happening and offers practical and feasible recommendations on making the learning of foreign languages and cross-cultural competence a centerpiece of learning in schools and universities.
