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English remains dominant language preference for immigrants to United States:
How can the Latino population be growing rapidly while Spanish-speaking remains stable? The answer lies in oft-overlooked peculiarities of census data and in the particular linguistic history of the United States.
If one looks only at immigration patterns over the past half-century, it is true that the U.S. has been gaining Spanish-speakers. From 1965 to 2015, roughly half of all immigration has come from Latin American countries. This trend added some 30 million people, most of whom came speaking Spanish, to the American populace.
But this is only half the story. While new immigrants bring Spanish with them, research shows that their children tend to become bilinguals who overwhelmingly prefer English. As a result, the same immigrants' grandchildren likely speak English only.
Linguists call this phenomenon "the three-generation pattern." In essence, it means that non-English languages in the U.S. are lost by or during the third generation.
We can see this pattern playing out in data from the Pew Hispanic Center. Surveys show that in 2000, 48 percent of Latino adults aged 50 to 68 spoke "only English" or "English very well," and that 73 percent of Latino children aged 5 to 17 did.
By 2014, those numbers had jumped to 52 percent and 88 percent, respectively. In other words, the shift from Spanish to English is happening nationwide, both over time and between generations.
If the preferred language is English, why do the immigrants refuse to understand common English terms like "taco," "burrito," "loco," and "amigo?"
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Lester on Saturday January 27 2018, @01:02PM (2 children)
It doesn't change the fact that unless they learn to speak English as a native, they will keep tired, aching, and hungry. They want to eat, not to get an English quiz, but doing so, they are going to eat today and guarantee that tomorrow they will be tired, aching, and hungry struggling for a simple meal.
Probably they expect their kids to learn proper English to break the wheel. Unfortunately as they work a lot hours, odds are that their kids will be educated in the street.
By the way, I'm Spaniard. We have a lot of people from Morocco and other Arabian Speaking north African people, I can see that if they can' t express in Spanish, their job opportunities are... non qualified underpaid jobs.
The question is that in USA speaking Spanish is not very useful unless you are applying fro a job that needs to talk to illegals. Speaking Spanish is not something the high class is proud anymore, it's not politically correct anymore. learning Spanish is just like investing in charity, not in your career.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @01:21PM (1 child)
"not politically correct" to speak your mother tongue? Never be ashamed of who you are.
I've been trying to learn Spanish recently after I got bored of trying to learn French. It's pretty cool.
(Score: 2) by Lester on Monday January 29 2018, @09:00AM
No, I mean that, being native English speaker, learning Spanish is not politically correct anymore.
Spanish language is not any more part of a different and interesting culture anymore, it is the jive of wetbacks. So being a native Spanish speaker, speaking Spanish doesn't show you are a person with tow cultures but a wetback