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Embracing English while keeping Spanish
Immigrants' kids often retain fluency

April 1, 2007

By Jane Meredith Adams

Special to the Tribune

SAN FRANCISCO — Verb by verb, 26 immigrants from Mexico, El Salvador, Argentina and elsewhere are hacking their way through the rules, and the exceptions to the rules, of the English language on the third floor of a converted warehouse in the Mission District. In spelling past tense verbs, "stop" becomes "stopped," explained City College of San Francisco professor Barbara Shaw, but "fix" never becomes "fixxed."

"The verbs," said a sighing Gertrudis Gonzalez, 58, who is struggling to learn English 36 years after arriving from her native El Salvador.

"They understand what I am saying," said Argentine immigrant Cintia Godoy, 29, of her co-workers at a catering company, "but I know I say it wrong."

As they have for generations, Spanish-speaking immigrants have flooded the Mission District, where stores post abierto signs when they are open, the billboards advertise telenovelas on Spanish-language television stations and the tellers at the Bank of America branch converse en Español. The district represents the kind of Spanish-language enclave that has provoked controversy nationwide, notably in Hazleton, Pa., the site of the most recent uproar in the ongoing debate about immigrants, the English language and the 28 million people in the U.S. who, according to Census Bureau statistics, speak Spanish in their homes.

Hazleton Mayor Louis Barletta, who defended in court that city's Illegal Immigration Relief Act, has charged that some immigrants "refuse to learn English, creating a language barrier for city employees."

"The country is only a few years away from having two lingua francas," said Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, an advocacy group that supports Barletta.

But less obvious than the "press 7 for Spanish" voice mail cues, said Ruben Rumbaut, professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine, is that the transition from mother tongue to English is occurring nationwide at the same rate as, or possibly even faster than, it did in previous eras.

"In spite of what people see as a massive flourishing of languages, what's going on in the U.S. is a massive language death," Rumbaut said. "This country continues to be a language graveyard. No other country in the world has absorbed as many languages as the United States."

The conversion from mother tongue to English has typically been a three-generation process, said Richard Alba, professor of sociology at the University at Albany, State University of New York. The adult immigrant arrives, has great difficulty learning English and speaks the mother tongue. The immigrant's U.S.-born children speak the mother tongue at home, learn English at school and prefer to speak English. The immigrant's grandchildren speak only English and have lost the mother tongue.

"I think English is probably being learned even faster than it was a century ago," said Alba, who noted that in rural America, ethnic enclaves could flourish independently, as German immigrants did in the Midwest in the late 19th Century.

What's different about immigrants and English today is that more second- and third-generation descendants are retaining some fluency in their mother tongue, particularly Spanish, Alba said. Proximity to Mexico and other Spanish-speaking countries, as well as the influx of Spanish-speaking immigrants, has made it easier to retain Spanish.

Nonetheless, even in the heart of Southern California, which is home to the largest community of Mexicans outside Mexico, English is the language spoken at home by 75 percent of the second-generation descendants of immigrants and 95 percent of the third-generation descendants, according to a study by Rumbaut published in 2006 in the journal Population and Development Review.

If that's the case, then why are there so many signs and services in Spanish? A couple of issues converge here, experts say. First is the constant influx of Spanish-speaking immigrants. "Even though the second and third generations of immigrants are progressing rapidly toward using English, you're always going to have a mix," said William Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution.

Access to English language classes also remains an issue. Classes in rudimentary English and math, including English for Speakers of Other Languages, were full in 40 of 43 states surveyed, said Lennox McLendon, adviser to the National Council of State Directors of Adult Education. "Basically, there are waiting lists everywhere."

The second issue is that businesses want to attract Spanish-speaking customers. "Banks have no interest in assimilation," said the reform federation's Stein, commenting on the widespread availability of Spanish-language options at ATMs. "They're trying to make a buck."

The third issue is access to health care and voting. Publicly funded hospitals have a mandate to serve the public, regardless of language.

At the voting booth, ballots in many languages open up participation to all citizens. "Even if they're immigrants, they've passed a test for citizenship but maybe they don't have perfect knowledge of English," Frey said. "It's important to make sure they understand what they're voting for."

Waiting for an English class at City College of San Francisco, Esther Caballero, 40, represents another side of the debate. While she's struggling to learn English, she's working hard to make sure that her 5-year-old daughter retains her Spanish, in addition to learning English at school. In a global economy, said Caballero, knowing more than one language is a plus.

"I see the Mexican families where the child is not speaking Spanish because the mother and father say, `Speak English only,' " Caballero said. At home, she said, "It is only Spanish for my daughter."