The long waiting lists for available ESL (English as a Second Language) classes and the overwhelming trend for English to predominate among the second and third generations of immigrants from Latin America belie the common belief that new immigrants are reluctant to learn English. In many ways, the language patterns of today’s immigrants are similar to those of earlier generations: older immigrants find learning the new language extremely difficult, and sometimes unnecessary, while the younger generation quickly realizes that English is essential and becomes fluent rapidly. By the third generation, the language of the immigrant’s homeland tends to be lost.1 Often third or fourth generations will study their grandparents’ native language in school to try to reconnect with their heritage.
In some ways, though, today’s situation is different, and some of these differences have led to misconceptions about what today’s immigrants are really doing, especially with respect to learning English.
Many of those who came to the United States from Europe a hundred years ago planned to work hard for a few years and then return to their homelands. Those who carried out this plan rarely learned much English. But for those who ended up staying longer and establishing families here, English came to predominate within a generation or at most two.
This pattern, which prevailed from the 1870s through the early twentieth century, shifted in the decade between 1914 and 1924. The migrant stream was interrupted, in both directions. The First World War and the increasingly restrictive U.S. immigration laws led to a significant reduction in transatlantic travel. This meant that immigrant populations and their cultures ceased to be nourished by a continuing influx, and that immigrants who were here had to give up their hopes of returning home. At the same time, anti-foreign (and especially anti-German) propaganda and Americanization campaigns created further pressures for immigrants to abandon their native languages. Multilingualism came to be replaced by English monolingualism.
Both the past and the present of Latin American immigrants are somewhat different. First, the history of Latin Americans in the United States is one of forcible incorporation as well as immigration. Mexicans and Puerto Ricans were conquered by the United States. Conquered peoples have historically been more marginalized, and more reluctant to give up their cultural heritage, than voluntary immigrants. Many Native American populations, for example, have maintained their languages for hundreds of years after conquest. Likewise, Puerto Ricans resisted the intensive Anglicization campaign that sought to replace Spanish with English on the island in the first half of the twentieth century.
Although the history of conquest and forced incorporation of Spanish-speaking peoples into the United States in some ways structures the experiences of contemporary Latin American immigrants, it’s not the only factor that makes their experience different from that of earlier European immigrants. The other major difference is that geography, technology, and immigration patterns keep cross-border ties much more alive for today’s Latino immigrants. Their homelands are closer, they can go back and forth more easily and cheaply, they can stay in touch through various electronic media, and immigration is ongoing. So even if second- and third-generation Latinos are speaking English, new first generations are continually rejuvenating the Spanish-speaking population.
From the outside, it may look like Latinos are not learning English. But what’s really happening is that as one generation learns English, new Spanish speakers are arriving. At the same time, more Latinos are speaking both languages than has historically been the case for European immigrants. They learn English without giving up Spanish.
In 1980, 11 percent of the U.S. population, or 23.1 million people, spoke a language other than English at home. In 1990, it was 14 percent, or 31.8 million people, and in 2000, it was 18 percent or 47 million people. Over half of these—28.1 million in 2000—were Spanish speakers. (It’s worth noting, though, that over half of those who spoke Spanish or another non-English language at home were also proficient in English.)2 But the pattern of adoption of English has remained consistent: “The longer the length of stay, the more extensive the adoption of the English language.”3 The main variable affecting adoption of English has been age upon arrival: the older the immigrant, the less likely he or she is to become fluent in English.
While it’s clear that today’s Spanish-speaking immigrants are learning English just as quickly as earlier generations of European immigrants did, they also seem to be retaining their native language at higher levels than did the Europeans. This is probably due to the factors mentioned above: the history of colonization, the geographic proximity, the continuing immigration, and improved communications technology. While over half of third-generation Latino immigrants are monolingual in English, significant numbers are fluent in both English and Spanish.4
One way to measure the desire of Latin American immigrants to learn English is through their enrollment in ESL classes. In a recent study, almost 60 percent of ESL providers in the United States reported significant waiting lists—some up to three years. Many of those that reported no waiting list explained that they did not keep a list because there were so many people trying to sign up for their classes, they simply filled the classes then turned people away. In New York City, there were only forty thousand slots for over a million hopeful students.5
A study by the Pew Hispanic Foundation asked Latinos directly how important they believed learning English was. “Hispanics by a large margin believe that immigrants have to speak English to be a part of American society and even more so that English should be taught to the children of immigrants,” the authors of the survey concluded. According to the study, 92 percent of Hispanics believed that it was “very important” that the children of immigrants be taught English, compared to 87 percent of non-Hispanic whites and 83 percent of non-Hispanic blacks.6 Clearly, there is no reluctance to learn English among the Hispanic population.
Why, then, have politicians and activists felt the need to promote “English only” laws and initiatives throughout the United States? By late 2006 twenty-eight states had, through legislation or through the initiative process, declared English as their official language. The organization U.S. English, Inc., founded by former senator S. I. Hayakawa, has been working since 1983 to promote such legislation at the state and national levels. Its goal, the organization announces, is “preserving the unifying role of the English language in the United States.”7 The organization English for the Children has focused its energies on dismantling bilingual education programs, arguing that children should be taught only in English. Led by California businessman Ron Unz, this organization has also succeeded in passing anti-bilingual-education initiatives in California, Arizona, and Massachusetts.8
Most supporters of these initiatives argue passionately for the importance of English. But since there is no organized movement in the political or educational spheres, nor any discernable public opinion, that challenges the importance of learning English, the campaign had to find a different target. Instead of targeting immigrants, it targeted the bilingual education programs established in the 1960s to help immigrant children learn English. Ignoring two generations of research on the successes of these programs, Unz and his followers built a campaign on the entirely unsubstantiated notion that bilingual education actually prevented children from learning English.
Research on the topic has been fairly unanimous in its conclusions that bilingualism, or multilingualism, offers both cognitive and professional advantages over monolingualism. It also shows that while children can gain conversational knowledge of a new language rather quickly, it takes three to four years for them to develop the academic fluency that allows them to engage in in-depth study in the second language.9
Thus children who receive instruction in their native language in subject areas like math, science, and reading while they are learning English consistently show better short-term and long-term results—not only in these subject areas, but also in knowledge of English.10 These outcomes are unsurprising to cognitive scientists, who have long argued for the benefits of bilingualism.11
But the proponents of “English only” ask voters to endorse the proposal that non-English-speaking children’s needs will be better met with no instruction in their native language. Rather, they propose a limited period in an ESL classroom, followed by a move into subject areas taught only in English. English-only proponents also raise the specter—also entirely unsupported by any evidence—that bilingualism threatens English.
James Crawford, former president of the National Association of Bilingual Educators, argues that by combining xenophobia with misinformation, the anti-bilingual-education movement has brought both conservatives and liberals into its English-only fold. Some of the leaders of the anti-bilingual movement may be motivated by xenophobia, but most of the voters who have supported the initiatives do so because they have come to believe—contrary to all evidence—that bilingual education disadvantages immigrant children. As Crawford explains, many people vote against bilingual education “in the erroneous belief that it segregates immigrant children, fails to teach them English, and limits their opportunities.”12
A high-profile—and well-funded—campaign has created this widespread impression that bilingual education impedes children’s ability to learn English. According to this theory, learning English and learning other kinds of subject matter are mutually exclusive: either children are taught English, with academic subjects put on hold, or they are isolated in “bilingual” classrooms where they learn their academic subjects in their native language, but no English.
Reagan administration official Linda Chávez “told the stories of children allegedly victimized by a ‘multibillion-dollar bureaucracy’—misassigned to bilingual classrooms, held there against their parents’ will, and prevented from learning English.”13 Conservative analysts call bilingual education “modern-day segregation … cordoning children into separate classrooms and depriving them of English language skills.”14
This description fundamentally misconstrues the nature and the goals of bilingual education. Bilingual education is based on the premise that “there is no need to hold children back in English while they learn school subjects in their native language, or to hold them back academically while they acquire English. Quite the contrary. A generation of research and practice has shown that developing academic skills and knowledge in students’ vernacular supports their acquisition of English.”15 Most voters, though, don’t have the time or the resources to explore the research on language acquisition, and they don’t know much about how bilingual programs work.
Furthermore, as Crawford explains, “because bilingual education is controversial, it is reported less as a pedagogical field than a political issue, with opposing ‘sides’ given equal time.”16 Rather like the issue of evolution, or global warming: there is an overwhelming scientific consensus on the basic issues, but because they are politically controversial, they are often presented in the media as if there were equal scientific validity to the opposing political views.
In some ways, the debate about bilingual education mirrors other debates about social policy. Conservatives argue that social spending on programs like welfare, affirmative action, or others designed to address social, racial, and economic inequalities actually harms those whom it is designed to help.
Education should not be understood as a zero-sum issue. Just as children should be taught math and reading—and educators understand that literacy enhances math skills, and vice versa—children who are fluent in a language other than English have an academic skill that should be nurtured. Politicians and others who are concerned with immigrants learning English should push for more adult ESL programs, and better funding for bilingual education, rather than punitive measures like English-only ballots and banning the educational programs designed to effectively teach children.