America’s annual spelling fever ended hours ago. 11-year old Nihar Janga, of Austin, Texas, and 13-year old Jairam Hathwar of New York were declared champions after correctly spelling “gesellschaft” and “ Feldenkrais” respectively. Every year, I marvel at the patience and dedication of middle-schoolers who somehow know how to spell these obscure tortuous words. As kids of south Asian descent have dominated this contest in recent years, it has piqued my cultural interest as well. The thinkpieces around desi spellers has gone on to voyeuristically explain this success — south Asian parents are well educated and their social support structures provide children lots of ‘little league’ practice before the national bee (see articles here and here), or, the first-generation immigrant obsession with brain sports (see here). However, I saw very little data analysis on the spellebrities and their roots. So I did some digging around on the Scripps National Spelling Bee website and put it on a map to see if we could learn more about the finalists.

Lesson 1: #Diversity

Scripps National Spelling Bee finalists from 2009–2016, mapped by ethnicity and hometown

Scripps brags every year about where all its finalists and winners are from, but the map shows how geographically and ethnically diverse the participants truly are. As a casual spelling bee watcher, I had no idea Scripps had finalists from Jamaica, Korea, China, Japan, and Ghana! The fact that this contest attracts talent from all over the world is truly powerful, especially in a postcolonial context where people may have a different relationship with the many languages tested on this stage.

Trends in Scripps National Spelling Bee finalists by race/ethnicity, 2009–2016

That being said, diversity is an interesting question in the Scripps contest. From the last eight years, we see some interesting race/ethnicity trends emerging across participants. The percentage of contestants of south Asian descent, including kids with parents from countries like India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh, has increased from 37% in 2009 to 51% in 2016. In 2014, the percentage of finalists of south Asian descent surpassed the percentage of whites— which is much more recently than I would have guessed from the aforementioned thinkpieces. Looking at the ethnicities of only the champions— who have consistently been Indian-American since 2008 — misses a more meaningful pool of students who can potentially hint at demographic trends among participants. Finally, compared to the other races/ethnicities, far fewer Hispanic, Pacific Islander, and Black children become finalists in this contest. Perhaps these numbers even out in initial rounds, but it looks like the contest retains far more white and south Asian students in the latter rounds. Of the ten black finalists over the past eight years, two are from the mainland United States. Most of the others are from Jamaica, and in 2016, the first finalist from Ghana was announced.

There have been only 10 black Spelling Bee finalists over the past eight years. Only two of them were from the United States.

Note: I realize race and ethnicity are different terms, but the Scripps website does not release any information regarding the race or ethnicity of their participants. To see the differences, I assigned each finalist from 2009–2016 one of the following categories: Asian, Black, Hispanic, Pacific Islander, South Asian, Southeast Asian, or White, depending on the description available on their Finalist page. The distinction between South Asian and Southeast Asian is based entirely on participant names, and the fact that I am very familiar with the former. I intentionally chose a more inclusive term South Asian category rather than Indian, which while generally true, may not always hold for some finalists. I realize this is an entirely subjective assessment, and of course it ignores multiple race/ethnicity mixes that form many identities. However, from the information I could access, I cannot possibly accurately pinpoint the individual race and ethnic breakdown of every Scripps finalist. These maps are based on my best guess given the information that is publicly released about the contestants.

Lesson #2: Female Bee finalists have more geographic diversity

Male finalists of the National Spelling Bee have hotspots in Chicago, New York, and DC, with localized hotspots in most major cities. Female finalists have a wider range of hometowns. There is a hotspot around New York and Philadelphia, in Florida, and a noticeable number of participants from Toronto. There is also a large region in Southern California, probably part of the Los Angeles spelling bee circuit, that creates many female finalists.

Note: this geocoded information is based on the elementary school and hometown self-reported by the finalists on Scripps website. For home-schooled students, their hometown was geocoded.

Lesson #3: South Asian male and female finalists live in different parts of the US

One more filter, and this map answers the question I started out with: where are the South Asian finalists from? Male finalists of South Asian descent seem to be concentrated in the mid-Atlantic, with localized hotspots in Texas (Dallas, Houston) and a few other states. There are WAY fewer male finalists from the West coast — most of the guys here seem to be part of the San Francisco circuit. The female south Asian finalists are from different parts of the United States. As for their hometowns, we see multiple hotspots in Florida, as well as non-mid-Atlantic cities like Denver, Seattle, Chicago, and Atlanta. The geographic variability in male/female hometowns of South Asians is fascinating — but I cannot fully hypothesize why these differences exist. I can only imagine that a combination of parents’ jobs, school districts, and support systems — ‘little league’ spelling contests, sports, friends, etc. factor into that. However, I would argue that the geographic diversity of the girls means that they would have to work harder to compensate for the relative lack of structures to support their spelling skills — for example, a strong little league circuit, many local sponsors, etc.

These lessons aside, I am truly amazed by what these kids achieve daily, monthly, annually. They share an unparalleled enthusiasm for learning about languages, something I share on a much smaller, less competitive scale. Personally, it makes me very happy to see south Asians, especially south Asian girls, excel in this contest with heavy postcolonial roots. Demographic trends aside, I am so happy to see finalists from all over the world participate in this etymological exercise. I leave you today with Akash Vukoti, a 6-year old who can probably kick my ass at spellcheck anyday.