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To present quantitative data regarding the place of birth, national origins, geographic distribution and linguistic profiles of people who speak Spanish in the US, discuss some limitations of official statistics, and explain patterns of Spanish maintenance and shift as well as the factors that shape them.

Introduction

As we said in the previous chapter, the US Census Bureau reports that in 2017 there were over 41 million people in the US who spoke Spanish at home. In this chapter, we try to give a sense of who these speakers of Spanish are by providing statistics about their nativity (i.e. whether they were born in the US or abroad), their national origin or ethnicity and their geographic distribution within the US. We then turn to a consideration of patterns of language knowledge and use. Specifically, we address questions such as whether or not people who speak Spanish also speak English, whether Spanish can be seen as encroaching on English and whether Spanish–English bilingualism is the norm among US-born Latinxs. In order to answer these questions, we present statistics from the Census Bureau and we explain the limitations of that data. We then go on to examine statistics from other sources that can shed additional light on generational patterns of language knowledge. Finally, we discuss theoretical approaches to the study of language maintenance and/or shift, including a consideration of the societal and individual factors that have an impact and the ways in which they play out in the case of Spanish in the US.

A Statistical Portrait of Spanish in the US

In the US, many people think of Spanish as a foreign language and a common misconception is that people who speak Spanish in the US are primarily immigrants. Further, public discourse often portrays Spanish as a language not just of immigrants, but of unauthorized immigrants (Dick, 2011; DuBord, 2014; Leeman, 2012a). In reality, however, more than half (53%) of the people who speak Spanish at home were born in the US (American Community Survey 2017 Five-year estimates). These data, together with Spanish’s long history within the current borders of the US (discussed in detail in the next chapter), make it clear that Spanish is not a foreign language (Alonso, 2006; Lozano, 2018). In addition to the implications for how we think about Spanish, these statistics also have concrete linguistic and sociolinguistic repercussions. Specifically, they mean that a majority of Spanish-speakers are either bilingual or dominant in English. Thus, it bears emphasizing that when we use the term ‘Spanish-speakers’ we don’t mean people who are monolingual in Spanish; instead, we are referring to people who speak Spanish, regardless of whether or not they also speak English and of which language they use more frequently. The high rates of Spanish–English bilingualism and language shift to English (discussed below) have important implications for educational policy and language policy more broadly (discussed in Chapters 8 and 9).

Another common misconception is that all Latinxs speak Spanish. Some people even use the terms Spanish-speaking and Latinx interchangeably, as if they were synonyms. Further, some Latinxs believe there is an obligation to know Spanish and, among those who don’t, feelings of shame or guilt are not uncommon (we will return to this issue later in this chapter). However, even though some people consider speaking Spanish to be a key part of ‘authentic’ Latinx identity (a topic we will return to several times later in this book), a look at the statistics reveals that roughly a quarter (27%) of Latinxs aged five and older speak only English at home (ACS 2017 Five-year estimates). The percentage of Latinxs born in the US who only speak English at home is even higher (41%). Because a growing share of Latinxs are US-born (66% in 2017; ACS 2017 Five-year estimates), the overall share of Latinxs who speak only English is also on the rise (López & González-Barrera, 2013).

So far, we have talked about the number and percentage of Spanish-speakers in the US as a whole, but we want to stress that there is a great deal of variation from state to state, county to county and city to city. As shown in Figure 2.1, the states with the highest percentage of Spanish-speakers in the population are in the Southwest, followed by Florida and then New Jersey and New York. In Maine, Spanish-speakers represent less than 1% of the population, while in Texas they comprise over 29%, demonstrating the tremendous range. There are also differences within states; taking Florida as an example, in the city of Miami roughly 67% of the population aged five and older speak Spanish at home, but in St. Petersburg city just 4% do. As we discuss in detail in the next chapter, the states with the highest percentages of Spanish-speakers are not just closest to Mexico; they were part of Mexico until the mid-19th century. Still, even though the percentage of Spanish-speakers is lower in some parts of the country, Spanish is the most commonly spoken non-English language in every state except Alaska, Hawaii, Louisiana, Maine, New Hampshire, North Dakota and Vermont (Blatt, 2014).

Figure 2.1 Percentage of the population age five and older that speaks Spanish at home

Data – ACS 2017 One-year estimate; Map – Social Explorer.

National Origin Groups

As we stress repeatedly in this book, people who speak Spanish are extremely diverse. In the previous sections we saw that Spanish-speakers include people born in the US as well as immigrants. We now look at the national origin groups that make up the Spanish-speaking population in the US. Because the US Census Bureau does not produce statistics on language use for specific Latinx subgroups, in Table 2.1 we present the relative size of the largest national origin groups as a way to approximate the make-up of the Spanish-speaking population (but it’s not a perfect proxy, as we explained above!). The data are based on responses to the Census Bureau’s question on Hispanic Origin (see Chapter 5). To be clear, national origin does not mean ‘nationality,’ but rather something along the lines of ‘ethnicity’ (we discuss ethnicity further in Chapter 5). Thus, the national origin groups listed in Table 2.1 and elsewhere in this book include people born in the US (whether offspring of immigrants or descendants of lands incorporated by the US) as well as people born elsewhere.

Table 2.1 National origin of the Latinx population
Mexican	62.3%
Puerto Rican	9.5%
Cuban	3.9%
Salvadoran	3.9%
Dominican (Dominican Republic)	3.5%
Guatemalan	2.5%
Colombian	2.1%
Honduran	1.6%
Spaniard	1.4%
Ecuadorian	1.3%
Peruvian	1.2%
Spanisha	0.8%
Nicaraguan	0.8%
Venezuelan	0.7%
Argentinean	0.5%
Panamanian	0.4%
Chilean	0.3%
Costa Rican	0.3%
Bolivian	0.2%
Uruguayan	0.1%
Note: aThe categories here reflect the answers provided by respondents. As we discuss later in this chapter, as well as in Chapter 5, there are multiple possible meanings for the identity term Spanish. It is sometimes used as a pan-ethnic label roughly equivalent to Hispanic or Latinx, but can also refer specifically to origins in Spain. Source: ACS 2017 One-year estimates.

As can be seen in Table 2.1, Mexicans and Mexican Americans make up the largest share of Latinxs by far. However, this percentage has decreased since peaking in 2008, and the Latinx population has become increasingly diverse (Flores, 2017).

There is also a great deal of geographic diversity, and the proportion of each national origin group varies in different parts of the country. For example, in Arizona the vast majority (89%) of Latinxs are of Mexican origin, in Florida the most common Latinx national origin groups are Cubans (29%) and Puerto Ricans (21%), in New York they are Puerto Ricans (29%) and Dominicans (23%), and in Virginia they are Salvadorans (23%) and Mexicans (23%) (ACS 2017 One-year estimates). (Those interested in specific national origin groups or geographies, can perform customized searches using the US Census Bureau’s online data tool at https://data.census.gov).

In addition to geographic distribution, demographic statistics also reveal other differences among Latinx national origin groups. For example, the poverty rate among Guatemalans, Hondurans and Dominicans is 28% but only 16% among Argentineans (vs. 25% for Latinxs overall and 16% for the general US population) (López & Patten, 2015). The percentage of Latinxs who were born outside the US is declining for all national origin groups, but the intergroup differences are notable: in 2013, 69% of Venezuelans and 65% of Peruvians were foreign-born while only 33% of Mexicans were (López & Patten, 2015). Finally, Mexicans had the lowest median age (26), while Cubans had the highest (40), which is higher than the mean both for all Latinxs (28) and for the general US population (37) (López & Patten, 2015). Demographic profiles for each of the 14 largest Latinx groups are available on the Pew Research Center’s website (http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/09/15/the-impact-of-slowing-immigration-foreign-born-share-falls-among-14-largest-us-hispanic-origin-groups). While these statistics reveal overall trends, we want to stress yet again that there are individual differences and variation within national origin groups.

Latinxs and Spanish-speakers in the US are also ethnoracially diverse, as a result of the multifaceted history of conquest, colonization, slavery and immigration across the Americas, as well as Latinxs’ varied personal and family histories and life experiences within the US. Table 2.2 shows the Census Bureau’s statistics on the racial make-up of the Latinx population. As we will discuss in depth in Chapter 5, the Census Bureau considers ‘Latino’ to be an ethnic, rather than a racial, identity. In that chapter, we critically examine the construct of race, the Census Bureau’s race and ethnicity questions and the ethnoracial classification of Latinxs.

Table 2.2 Racial make-up of the Latinx population
White	65.0%
Black or African American	2.1%
American Indian and Alaska Native	1.0%
Asian	0.4%
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander	0.1%
Some other race	26.7%
Two or more races	4.7%
Source: ACS 2017 One-year estimates.

We want to note that, in contrast with the Census Bureau’s ethnoracial statistics that show roughly two-thirds of Latinxs’ racial identity as White, a recent Pew Center survey found that two-thirds of Latinxs consider their Latinx background to be part of their racial identity and roughly one-third consider themselves to be of ‘mixed race’ (González-Barrera, 2015). Further, despite the small percentage of Latinxs who identify themselves as Black or African American on the Census Bureau’s surveys, approximately one-quarter of Latinx respondents on a recent Pew survey classify themselves as ‘Afro-Latino, Afro-Caribbean, or Afro-[country of origin]’ (López & González-Barrera, 2016). These discrepancies highlight the constructed, contextual and contested nature of ethnoracial and other identities, an issue we will return to in Chapters 5 and 6, as well as the impact of the question format on the responses and data collected.

The diversity of the Latinx population and the concentration of national origin groups in different parts of the country also point to the diversity of varieties of Spanish spoken within the US. The make-up of local Latinx populations shapes the Spanish spoken in different areas of the country, such that the Spanish one hears in El Paso, Texas is more likely to sound like Mexican varieties, whereas the Spanish heard in Washington Heights, New York is more likely to sound Dominican (see Chapter 10 for a discussion of some of these linguistic characteristics). Still, this is not to say that the Spanish spoken in these areas is just like what you might hear in Mexico or the Dominican Republic; not only do all language varieties change and develop in different ways over time, but contact with English, and with other varieties of Spanish, also has an impact on how Spanish is spoken in the US (see Chapter 10). Further, we want to stress that ‘Mexican Spanish’ and ‘Dominican Spanish’ are not monolithic, homogenous entities. Instead, there is significant geographic and social variation within nations and national origin groups (in Chapter 4 we discuss the ideologies linking language to nation).

Statistics on Language Ability and Use

In our overview of how many people speak Spanish at home we relied on official statistics from the Census Bureau. Before going further in our discussion of the patterns of language knowledge and use, let’s stop to examine where those statistics come from and how they are produced. In particular, we’ll describe the Census Bureau’s question about language and the kinds of language data that the Census Bureau does and doesn’t collect, and we’ll explain how the Census Bureau’s language question limits our knowledge about Spanish and Spanish-speakers in the US (Leeman, 2004, 2018c). In Chapter 5 we will explain and critically analyze the Census Bureau’s statistics on ethnoracial identity.

Since 1980, the Census Bureau has produced statistics about language using a three-part question which is asked of persons aged five and older (see Figure 2.2). The first part of the question asks whether the person speaks a language other than English at home. If the answer is yes, the next part of the question provides a write-in box to identify the non-English language, and the third part asks how well the person speaks English, with four response options: Very Well, Well, Not Well and Not at All. This question does not appear on the census itself (which is conducted every ten years), but rather on the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS). The ACS is an annual sample-based survey that collects a wide array of social, economic and other data from US households. The language data are used in decisions about where voting materials in Spanish and other minority languages are needed as well as in the implementation of other language policies (see Chapter 8).

Figure 2.2 American Community Survey language question (2015)

There are several aspects of this language question, and the resulting statistics, that are worth noting. First, the ACS asks only about language use, not language knowledge, and only about home use. Thus, if a person knows another language but doesn’t speak it at home, this isn’t recorded by the Census Bureau. For this reason, the actual number of people who know Spanish is certainly higher than the 41 million reported by the Census Bureau, since many people who know Spanish don’t speak it at home (Leeman, 2004). Secondly, the question only provides one write-in box for a non-English language. As a result, there is no way of knowing whether respondents speak more than one non-English language at home. The proportion of immigrants from Latin America, and especially Central America, who speak indigenous languages (such as K’iche’, Mixtec and Nahuatl) is growing (Bazo Vienrich, 2018). Some such individuals also speak Spanish, but others don’t. However, because the ACS only provides space for one non-English language, multilingual individuals who answer that they speak an indigenous language (such as Aymara, K’iche’, Mixtec, Nahuatl or Quechua) are omitted from counts of people who speak Spanish. On the other hand, if they answer that they speak Spanish, their use of indigenous languages goes unrecorded.

The third and fourth points we want to highlight are related to the English-speaking ability question. Rather than an objective assessment, the question relies on the respondents’ subjective judgment about how well the person speaks English. Obviously, this raises some concern about the reliability and validity of the results, since people differ in the criteria they use, and notions about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ ways of speaking might impact responses (Leeman, 2015). On the other hand, it clearly wouldn’t be feasible or desirable to give everyone a language exam! The fourth aspect of the ACS language question that we want to mention is that it doesn’t ask about ability in the non-English language. Thus, while the question allows for classification people based on four levels of English-speaking ability, there is no way to know about their ability in Spanish (or any other non-English language). Some people who speak Spanish at home are completely fluent, whereas others have more limited ability, but there is no way to tell them apart in the ACS data (Leeman, 2004, 2018c).

A final limitation of the ACS is that, because it is based on a sample (rather than on the entire population, like the census), it isn’t possible to calculate statistics for small areas. Thus, we can only use ACS data to compare the percentage of people who speak Spanish in different states or in large cities, but not in less populated counties, smaller cities or neighborhoods.

The reason that the Census Bureau’s language questions are the way they are is related both to language policies and to language ideologies (Leeman, 2004, 2018c). As we discuss in Chapter 8, there are a few US language policies that require services in minority languages but these are designed for people with limited speaking ability in English (Gilman, 2011). In some cases (e.g. the Voting Rights Act), the requirement depends on how many such people live in a given area, and ACS statistics are used to make that determination. In contrast, there aren’t any policies that require statistics about ability in non-English languages (Leeman, 2018c). Further, dominant language ideologies don’t see minority languages as a particularly interesting social characteristic (Leeman, 2004), something we will delve into further in Chapter 4. For this reason, while the ACS provides invaluable statistics on home language use and English-speaking ability, corresponding statistics about knowledge of Spanish must come from other, non-governmental sources.

The English-speaking Ability of Spanish-speakers and Latinxs

One thing that the ACS statistics do allow us to determine is the English-speaking ability of people who report speaking Spanish at home, and thus to evaluate the oft-repeated claim that Spanish-speaking immigrants and their offspring don’t learn English. The supposed failure to learn English, which is often framed as a refusal or unwillingness to do so, is a common trope on social media and in online comments, letters to the editor and everyday discourse, one that is often taken for granted or presented as fact without any evidence. For example, in a recent appearance on Meet the Press, former NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw answered a question about the high levels of support among residents of Wyoming and South Dakota for building a wall on the US–Mexico border as follows:

And a lot of this, we don’t want to talk about. But the fact is, on the Republican side, a lot of people see the rise of an extraordinary, important, new constituent in American politics, Hispanics, who will come here and all be Democrats. Also, I hear, when I push people a little harder, ‘Well, I don’t know whether I want brown grandbabies.’ I mean, that’s also a part of it. It’s the intermarriage that is going on and the cultures that are conflicting with each other. I also happen to believe that the Hispanics should work harder at assimilation. That’s one of the things I’ve been saying for a long time. You know, they ought not to be just codified [sic] in their communities but make sure that all their kids are learning to speak English, and that they feel comfortable in the communities. And that’s going to take outreach on both sides, frankly. (NBC News, 2019)

There is a lot to unpack in Brokaw’s statement, including his acknowledgement that support for a border wall is rooted at least in part in anti-Latinx racism and fears about the racial make-up of the nation, in addition to his implied claim that Latinxs do not ensure that their children speak English. In a particularly flagrant example of ‘bothsidesism,’ or the tendency of the press to treat both sides of a debate as equally valid, Brokaw framed Whites’ racist opposition to intermarriage as if it were morally equivalent to Latinxs’ supposed lack of effort to teach English to their children.1 In Chapter 5 we examine the racialization of Spanish and in Chapter 8 we discuss the legal understanding of linguistic discrimination as a proxy for national origin or racial discrimination; here we focus on the false notion that Latinxs and Spanish-speakers refuse to learn English.

Despite the frequency with which it is repeated, both quantitative and qualitative research has shown that the myth of Latin American immigrants’ refusal to learn English is just that – a myth. This myth actually consists of three interrelated notions, all of which are false: (1) they don’t want to learn English; (2) they don’t learn English; and (3) they don’t make sure their children learn English. Let’s start with the idea that immigrants don’t want to learn English. In fact, a Pew Center survey found just the opposite: nine out of ten Latinxs think learning English is important (Taylor et al., 2012). Like quantitative surveys, qualitative studies as well as memoirs have also consistently found that immigrants perceive learning English as valuable for both symbolic and practical purposes. For example, in DuBord’s (2014) ethnographic study of Mexican immigrants at a day laborer center in Arizona, participants told her of the language barriers and difficulties they had faced prior to learning English, such as having less access to employment, being unable to stand up to abusive employers and needing to rely on others to go shopping. For those that had not learned English, it was not because they had rejected it. On the contrary, they saw knowing English as way to get better jobs, to have better relationships with supervisors, to earn more money and, in the following example, to open one’s own company:

Yo no sé el inglés pero si supiera inglés ya anduviera en mi propia compañía porque hay muchos que no saben trabajar pero saben el inglés. Eso es lo que les ayuda a ellos.

I don’t know English, but if I knew English I would already have my own company because there are many guys who don’t know how to work but they know English. That is what helps them.

(DuBord, 2014: 69)

Although it is not at all clear in the context of DuBord’s research that knowledge of English actually confers the imagined benefits, the key point here is that Spanish-speakers want to learn English and they perceive it as valuable for professional reasons (we discuss this emphasis on the economic value of languages in Chapter 4).

In addition to practical and labor market considerations, many Latinxs also see English as a prerequisite for full participation and legitimacy in US society. For example, when asked if there are any positive aspects to speaking English, a female participant in Velázquez’ (2018: 74) research responded: ‘Pues la comunicación, el no sentirse, el no sentirse como una sombra en todo lugar’ (‘Well, communication, not feeling, not feeling like a shadow everywhere’). Another woman answered as follows:

Pues lo bueno de hablar inglés es para comunicarse con las demás personas de aquí […] O para entenderles también […] Para entenderles, eso es bueno porque […] Si no hablamos no somos nada.

(Velázquez, 2018: 74)

Well, the good thing about speaking English is to communicate with other people from here […] or to understand them too, that’s the good thing because […] if we don’t speak [it] we’re nothing.

Similarly, other scholars have also found that Mexican immigrants feel an obligation to learn English, as well as a sense of shame and/or emotional pain when they do not acquire it as fully or as quickly as they would like (García Bedolla, 2003; Relaño Pastor, 2014). Moreover, like many non-Latinxs, the US-born Mexican Americans in García Bedolla’s study shared the belief that immigrants have a moral obligation to learn English. Along the same lines, Ullman (2010) described the sense of failure and personal inadequacy of Mexican migrants who had spent hundreds of dollars on the language-learning program Inglés sin Barreras (‘English without Barriers’), but had not been able to master English as quickly as they had imagined (or been promised).

But it’s not just that Spanish-speaking immigrants want to learn English; with time, they do learn it and so do their children and grandchildren, which disproves the second and third parts of the myth. Indeed, according to the Census Bureau statistics, more than three-quarters (76%) of people who speak Spanish at home are able to speak English either ‘very well’ or ‘well’ (ACS 2017 Five-year estimates). The percentage is even higher (95%) for Spanish-speakers who were born in the US, a statistic that includes people born in Puerto Rico. And even among foreign-born Spanish-speakers, 55% speak English ‘very well’ or ‘well.’ In other words, virtually all US-born Spanish-speakers speak English well, as do a majority of the foreign-born. And regarding the foreign-born, it’s worth noting that this includes recent arrivals as well as people who came to the US as adults. Not surprisingly, childhood immigrants and people who have been in the US for many years are the demographic groups with the highest rates of English proficiency (ACS 2017 Five-year estimates; Portes & Rumbaut, 2001; Veltman, 2000), given that language learning tends to be more difficult for adults, especially for those with limited time and/or financial resources to devote to it.

Note that the statistics we have just presented are about the English-speaking ability of people who speak Spanish at home. But Brokaw didn’t say that ‘Spanish-speakers’ need to make sure that their children speak English; he said that ‘Hispanics’ do. This is a clear example of the phenomenon we described at the beginning of this chapter – people using Hispanic and Spanish-speaking as synonyms and/or assuming that all Latinxs speak Spanish (we discuss this further in Chapters 5 and 6). Although we said it earlier, we’ll say it again: not all Latinxs speak Spanish. In fact, 41% of native-born Latinxs only speak English at home (ACS 2017 Five-year estimates). And among all Latinxs (including both native- and foreign-born), more than three-quarters (81%) speak English ‘very well’ or ‘well.’ Brokaw’s concern that Latinx immigrants and their offspring don’t speak English – which is not unique to this newscaster but instead is representative of a broader public discourse that portrays Latinxs as a threat to English – is simply unfounded. English is not in danger. As we discuss in Chapter 4, the idea that people who speak Spanish don’t also speak English is rooted in assumptions about monolingualism being the normal state of affairs. In fact, the issue for concern shouldn’t be that the offspring of Spanish-speaking immigrants fail to learn English; it should be that they don’t learn Spanish.

The Desire to Maintain Spanish and the Sorrow of Language Loss

As we saw in the previous section, despite common portrayals to the contrary, there is absolutely no evidence that speakers of Spanish (or Latinxs more broadly) fail to embrace or learn English. This does not mean, however, that they don’t care about maintaining Spanish. In fact, 95% of respondents in the Pew Center’s survey said it was important for future generations of Latinxs to speak Spanish (Taylor et al., 2012). The desire of Spanish-speaking immigrants to pass Spanish on to their children is also evident in qualitative studies of language maintenance and family language practices (e.g. Schecter & Bayley, 2002; Torrez, 2013; Velázquez, 2018). Sometimes Spanish is framed as valuable for future employment opportunities (Schecter & Bayley, 2002; Velázquez, 2018), but more commonly it is seen as important for ethnoracial identity and/or necessary for familial communication either in the US or with relatives abroad. For example, a Mexican immigrant in Torrez’s (2013) research explained her desire for bilingual Spanish–English educational opportunities for her children as follows:

Son perdidos porque no saben cómo hablar con sus familias. … Porque en primer lugar, nosotros, con nuestros hijos, nosotros hablamos puro español porque nosotros no sabemos mucho inglés y nuestra raza es de México y por eso. Y si ellos hablan puro inglés pues no van a entendernos a nosotros. Por eso queremos que puedan hacer eso, que puedan poner español y inglés. Y pues la mayor parte se comunica uno con ellos en español. Y en español, español porque es nuestro lenguaje de nosotros. Y ellos ya es diferente porque ellos es otro nivel de vida que llevan ellos y ellos ya están aprendiendo otro idioma, y qué bueno.

They are lost because they don’t know how to speak with their families. … In the first place, with our children, we speak Spanish because we don’t know English well and our people are from Mexico. And if they only speak English, well, they won’t understand us. For that reason, we want them to [be able to] do that – learn both Spanish and English. For the most part, we communicate with them in Spanish. And in Spanish, because it is our language. And for them it is different, because they are taking a different level of life and they are learning a different language, and that is good.

(Torrez, 2013: 282)

In her explanation, she underscores the importance of Spanish for group identity and familial communication and describes terrible emotional consequences of not learning Spanish (‘Son perdidos,’ ‘They are lost’). Her commentary in support of Spanish is not a rejection of English, which she clearly wants her children to know. Instead, she advocates Spanish–English bilingual education, because she has no doubt that her children will learn English.

A similar desire to transmit Spanish to the next generation, a sense of its importance for parent–child relationships and a recognition of the universality of English acquisition are apparent in the case of Nilda, a participant in Schecter and Bayley’s (2002) study of language socialization practices among Mexican migrants and their US-born offspring in Texas and California. Nilda was born in the US to Mexican parents. At age 15 she married a Mexican man with whom she had a child. Nilda explains her decision to speak Spanish to her son as follows:

And I got pregnant, and it seemed inconceivable to me that I would teach my son anything else but Spanish. Because I knew that if he went into the school system, he’d learn English. And I spoke English so I could always help him out in that way. But to think that my son would lose out on all that I had learned and that was me. There was too much of me to say ‘Well now you learn English so you can get ahead.’ (Schecter & Bayley, 2002: 167, emphasis in the original)

Nonetheless, despite the widely expressed desire among Latinxs for subsequent generations to maintain Spanish (Taylor et al., 2012), the unfortunate reality is that many children of immigrants are not fluent in the language of their parents, and the majority of the grandchildren of immigrants are monolingual English-speakers (we present detailed statistics on generational patterns of Spanish knowledge later in this chapter). Sometimes this is because parents and other caregivers decide to focus on English acquisition; in other cases children turn away from Spanish. Of course, adults and children alike are exposed to explicit and implicit societal messages that English is the key to fitting in and achieving success and that other languages are un-American and dangerous, and these messages play a role in shaping household language practices and individual choices (King & Fogle, 2006; Velázquez, 2018). The impact of these ideologies can be seen in the words of one participant in Zentella’s ethnographic study of Puerto Ricans in New York, who reported that, ‘I gotta let some of it go. If I start hanging on to my culture, speaking Spanish, it’s gonna hold me back’ (Zentella, 1997a: 142). In some cases, in addition to symbolic violence, Spanish-speakers have also been subjected to physical violence, and the memories and trauma of having been punished for speaking Spanish can lead them to prioritize English. For example, one woman in García-Bedolla’s (2003: 269) research explained that in her grandmother’s youth, ‘they would hit them and stuff when they spoke Spanish in schools, so she didn’t teach her kids how to speak Spanish.’

Spanish-speaking parents whose children don’t speak Spanish sometimes express regret about not having managed to pass on Spanish. However, as Velázquez (2018: 77) astutely puts it, ‘the transmission of Spanish [is] one of the many tasks in the constellation of child-rearing duties.’ In a context in which there is little educational support for Spanish or other minority languages, the burden falls largely on the parents and other caregivers. For those who need to work outside of the home, this can be a challenge, as the following mother explained:

I think a lot of parents are working and I don’t think they have the time to get their kids. … It’s a lot of work. And I have to say that first hand that I wish I could sit and spend a couple of hours a day because I’m sure I could teach them as well as the school could and you know that’s so expensive. We don’t have the time. You know we are living at such a fast paced life. Everything is so expensive, two working parents, you are constantly going, so you basically just let it go, and they start to lose it. (Pease-Alvarez, 2003: 18)

It’s not just parents who lament their children’s lack of Spanish ability, but also the adolescents and adults that they become (García Bedolla, 2003; Goble, 2016; Villa & Rivera-Mills, 2009). For many Latinxs who don’t speak Spanish, this comes with a sense of shame that has some similarity to the shame their parents or grandparents experienced if they did not speak English (García Bedolla, 2003). However, it is often accompanied by a sense of loss, as well as feelings of cultural insecurity or inauthenticity. Indeed, the ideology that sees speaking Spanish is a requirement of ‘authentic’ Latinx identity is widespread among Latinxs as well as non-Latinxs (see Chapter 6). These feelings are evident in the following quote from a Mexican American teacher interviewed by Goble:

a huge barrier for me learning Spanish was also fear of shaming myself because, because Spanish is something that I am supposed to know, because I’m Mexican … If I say it, and I mispronounce something, that would be really embarrassing to me. I was always afraid of sounding like a White girl, trying to speak Spanish. That was – that was a huge fear of mine, and so it was better to just not try at all. (adapted from Goble, 2016: 43–44)

In this excerpt we see how linguistic insecurity can lead to avoidance, which in turn can contribute to language loss. Further, some Latinxs who don’t speak Spanish feel that it has impacted their relationships with those that do. For example, a participant in García Bedolla’s (2003: 270) research reported that, ‘some people think I’m snobby because I don’t speak Spanish’.

In the next section we will examine in more detail, and in a more systematic way, the societal and individual factors that that shape language maintenance and shift.

Factors Impacting Language Maintenance and Shift

Having looked at the patterns of language knowledge and use among US Latinxs and Spanish-speakers, we now consider some group and individual factors that play a role. In this section we focus on social structures and societal values, and the practices that result from them, which can foster or inhibit the use of minority languages such as Spanish.

Ethnolinguistic vitality

One of the most well-known frameworks for the analysis of a minority language’s chances of survival is Giles et al.’s (1977) model of ethnolinguistic vitality, which presupposes that the maintenance of minority languages and ethnic group identities go hand in hand. Although the ethnolinguistic vitality model has received a fair amount of criticism, it is still widely used to analyze language maintenance and/or shift in contact settings around the world (Velázquez, 2018; Yagmur & Ehala, 2011). Further, despite its limitations, one valuable aspect of the ethnolinguistic vitality model is that it takes three different kinds of factors into account, together with group members’ subjective perception of those factors. The three types of factors that shape patterns of language maintenance are demographic factors, status factors and institutional support factors (Giles et al., 1977; Harwood et al., 1994).

Demographic factors include the overall number of speakers, their geographic distribution and density, and the degree to which they are isolated from each other as well as from the rest of society. Large, dense concentrations of ethnolinguistic group members isolated from other groups are thought to promote maintenance. A low rate of exogamy (i.e. marriage outside the group) compared to endogamy (i.e. marriage within the group) is also seen as contributing to maintenance. The potential impact of exogamy and endogamy rates is highlighted by a recent survey showing that 92% of Latinx parents with a Latinx spouse or partner say they speak Spanish to their children but only 55% of Latinx parents with a non-Latinx partner do so (Lopez et al., 2018). This is particularly noteworthy given the rising rates of exogamy among Latinxs and especially US-born Latinxs; in 2015, approximately 39% of US-born Latinx newlyweds were married to non-Latinxs (Livingston & Brown, 2017).

Status factors are related to how the minority language is viewed both within the ethnolinguistic group and by the broader society, and they include social status or prestige, cultural status and sociohistorical status. Negative ideologies such as racism, linguistic subordination and xenophobia can also be considered to be status factors. Finally, institutional support factors include the availability of minority language media (such as websites, radio and TV as well as newspapers), religious institutions and/or services, and government services in the minority language.

One key type of institutional support factor is whether education is available in the minority language and if so, what kind of education. Does the public school system offer bilingual or dual immersion programs? Or are classes in the minority language limited to a few hours a week, available only in upper grades, or are they not offered at all (except perhaps by the local community in evening classes or weekend schools)? As we explore in Chapter 9, the importance of minority language literacy and education in promoting language maintenance is one reason why researchers call for more Spanish language educational opportunities (e.g. Valdés, 2015).

Of course, the three types of factors outlined by Giles et al. (1977) are not independent of each other. Demographic and status factors clearly play a role in the availability of institutional support: when there are a large number of speakers of a minority language concentrated in a particular area it is easier to establish community media and religious institutions (or get existing institutions to offer programming) in that language. Similarly, policies requiring local and national governments to provide services or materials in minority languages are sometimes contingent on the number or percentage of speakers in a particular area. For example, in the US, the Voting Rights Act only requires that minority language electoral materials be available in districts where a certain percentage of the population speak that language and have limited English-speaking ability (see Chapter 8).

There have been several critiques of the ethnolinguistic vitality model. For one, the various factors are difficult to measure. Moreover, no single factor is sufficient to explain patterns of language maintenance and loss, and it is not clear which ones should be considered most important, making the model extremely difficult to test (Husband & Khan, 1982). In addition, the model focuses only on the characteristics of minority groups, thus failing to take the power and practices of dominant groups into account (Tollefson, 1991). Further, societal ideologies about languages in general, rather than a specific language or ethnolinguistic group, can also have an impact on vitality. For example, the notion that monolingualism is the norm, and that multilingualism is divisive, can have an impact on patterns of language use (Valdés, 2015), just as attitudes towards any specific language can.

Other limitations of the ethnolinguistic vitality model are related to the assumption of a one-to-one relationship between group identity and language. While speaking a minority language is sometimes seen as key to ‘authentic’ group identity, this isn’t always or automatically the case. Think, for example, of various ethnic groups in the US such as Italians and Polish; many people claim these identities despite being monolingual in English. Further, ethnolinguistic groups are not homogenous, and the model fails to consider factors such as social class, age, gender and/or subgroups (Husband & Khan, 1982). This critique is evocative of intersectionality, an analytic construct that we explore in greater depth in Chapter 6. Intersectional approaches stress that people don’t belong to just one identity category (such as gender, class or race) but rather they belong to several different categories at the same time, and their experiences are shaped by the ways in which these categories interact with one another (Crenshaw, 1989). For example, it would be a mistake to lump all Spanish-speakers into a single category without also considering their race, class and gender identities, among others. In fact, in their longitudinal study of the children of immigrants from a variety of countries, Portes and Rumbaut (2001) found that these factors were predictors of language maintenance. A related limitation of the ethnolinguistic vitality model is that it focuses on factors impacting groups and is unable to explain differences among individuals belonging to the same group (Pauwels, 2016). It is likely as a result of these limitations that the ethnolinguistic vitality model doesn’t always result in accurate predictions. In particular, minority languages are sometimes maintained in contexts where the model predicts shift (Velázquez, 2018; Yagmur & Ehala, 2011).

Social networks, family language practices and other individual differences

Because the ethnolinguistic vitality model focuses on factors impacting groups, some scholars have argued that social network theory, with its emphasis on individuals’ relationships within and outside of groups, is better suited for explaining individual-level patterns of language maintenance and use (Pauwels, 2016). The premise of social network approaches to language is that individuals’ patterns of language use derive from the people with whom they interact regularly. Thus, researchers adopting this approach examine individuals’ social relationships and networks. While early research in this area looked at how relationships impacted the use and spread of linguistic features within social networks, subsequent research expanded the focus by looking at how social networks can play a role in patterns of minority language maintenance and shift (e.g. Raschka et al., 2002; Stoessel, 2002).

Two features of social networks that have been the focus of analysis are density and multiplexity. Dense social networks are those networks in which lots of people in the network have ties to each other. Think, for example, of a close group of friends; everyone in the group is friends with each other. In a loose social network, in contrast, individuals have connections not shared by others, as in the case of a group of friends who come together at school or work, but outside of that context interact with a lot of other friends who don’t know each other. Multiplex networks are networks in which people have multiple kinds of ties or relationships – for example, if your sister-in-law is also your colleague and your workout buddy. In the case of minority languages, it makes sense that the more a person uses the language, the more likely they are to maintain it. Thus, minority language speakers in dense, multiplex social networks that use that language are more likely to maintain it. Some research has found the make-up of individuals’ social networks to be a more reliable predictor of language maintenance or shift than socio-economic status or gender (García, 2003; Milroy, 2002; Sallabank, 2010).

In recent years, scholars have noted that increased migration and mobility as well as new technologies make it easier for people to participate in dispersed networks and negotiate their identities transnationally (Coupland, 2003; De Fina & Perrino, 2013; Márquez-Reiter & Martín Rojo, 2014). The social networks of immigrants and their offspring connect them to people and languages in their countries of national origin as well as in the country where they reside, and they also consume media produced for transnational audiences. Increased mobility in recent decades means both that immigrants and their children are more likely to visit their countries of origin, and that they have a greater chance of coming into contact with more recent arrivals. Attending to these trends forces us to recognize that languages and social networks can’t really be mapped onto specific locales, as people are so often on the move and may communicate with people thousands of miles away on a daily basis.

Some researchers have pointed out that in some sense, the decision about whether or not to use a minority language comes down to a series of everyday choices, both conscious and unconscious (Valdés, 2015; Velázquez, 2018). In most cases, even one’s social networks involve some element of choice on the part of the individual. Thus, given that language maintenance depends on intergenerational transmission (Fishman, 1991), researchers have also begun to pay more attention to parents’ and other caretakers’ linguistic decisions and attitudes regarding their children’s minority language maintenance (we discuss family language policy in more depth in Chapter 8). Still, it’s important to stress that household language policies, including both adult and child language practices, don’t take place in a vacuum. Instead, individual language choices are shaped by structural forces and societal ideologies (Grosjean, 1982; Valdés, 2015), and even positive attitudes toward the minority language are not sufficient to ensure maintenance (Velázquez, 2018).

Indeed, while it is crucial for parents and caretakers to understand the factors that can shape children’s language acquisition and use, this doesn’t mean that we should treat intergenerational or family language transmission as something that depends solely on the decisions of individual speakers, as doing so would ignore the structural constraints on parental agency. As Zentella (1997a) demonstrated in her landmark ethnographic study of language shift among Puerto Ricans in New York, racism, linguistic subordination and economic precarity are key factors constraining parental language decisions and impacting language shift. Similarly, a person’s desire to maintain Spanish may not be sufficient to make that happen and, despite common feelings of guilt regarding language loss, individual agency is constrained by structural factors. Thus, in addition to looking at social networks, individual factors and personal decisions, we shouldn’t lose sight of the ways in which societal language ideologies and policies impact groups as well as the people within them.

Spanish Language Maintenance and Shift in the US

Historically, immigrants to the US have largely followed a three-generation pattern of language shift to English, with the immigrant generation being mostly dominant in the non-English language, the second generation being bilingual, and the third (and subsequent) generations being monolingual in English (Alba, 2004; Rivera-Mills, 2012; Veltman, 2000). However, some observers have expressed doubts that these patterns would continue to hold for Spanish, given the large number of speakers of Spanish and their relative high density in certain parts of the country – demographic factors that the ethnolinguistic vitality framework posits should contribute to maintenance. In some cases, these doubts are rooted in racially inflected anxiety and entangled with the unfounded and inaccurate claims that Spanish-speakers do not want to learn English, such as we saw in the Tom Brokaw quote presented earlier in this chapter, as well as a broader discourse about Latinxs’ supposed unwillingness and inability to assimilate (Chavez, 2013). Further, some people have suggested that greater ‘tolerance’ of multilingualism and multiculturalism makes it less likely that recent immigrants would assimilate linguistically. We examine patterns of Spanish maintenance and loss in the next sections.

Shift to English

In our earlier discussion of ACS data, we compared the English ability of immigrants and US-born Latinxs and Spanish-speakers, but we did not take into account how many generations someone’s family had been in the US. In order to get a better sense of the intergenerational patterns of language transmission and use, Alba (2004) did just that. Specifically, he compared the ACS language data for first-, second- and third-generation immigrants (i.e. those who immigrated themselves, the children of immigrants and the grandchildren of immigrants). He found that virtually all US-born Latinxs speak English well, but he noted an important difference between the second and third generations in terms of their Spanish use: 85% of the second generation spoke Spanish at home but only 18% of the third generation did. Alba interpreted this as evidence of the endurance of the three-generation pattern of shift to English.

Based on the high percentage of people in the second generation reported to speak Spanish at home, Alba also concluded that second-generation bilingualism is widespread. However, while at first glance this conclusion seems reasonable, it must be taken with a pinch of salt. As we discussed above, the Census Bureau doesn’t ask how well individuals speak Spanish (see Figure 2.2), and thus the count of ‘Spanish-speaking’ persons includes people with only limited Spanish-speaking ability as well as those who are completely proficient (or Spanish dominant), and there is no way of knowing the relative proportion of each. Because even individuals with very limited Spanish ability are included, Census Bureau statistics may give an inflated sense of Spanish maintenance and Spanish–English bilingualism (Leeman, 2018c). This is also the case for research that relies on the Census Bureau’s statistics, such as the Instituto Cervantes’ reports on the number of Spanish-speakers in different countries around the world (e.g. Instituto Cervantes, 2018). For this reason, in order to get a more accurate picture of patterns of language knowledge among the second and subsequent generations, we turn to data from the large-scale surveys of Latinxs carried out by the Pew Research Center, a non-governmental organization that conducts surveys and public opinion polls on a wide array of political and social issues.

In contrast with the Census Bureau’s ACS, the Pew Center surveys ask how well respondents speak both Spanish and English. By inquiring about speaking ability in both languages, the Pew Center is able to compare respondents’ ability in Spanish and English, and thus get a better sense of where they fall on the bilingual continuum. Regarding English, the Pew Center’s findings mirror those of the Census Bureau in that they show that nearly all US-born Latinxs are proficient in English (Taylor et al., 2012). But of greater interest for the question of Spanish maintenance are the data for the responses from the Spanish-speaking ability question. The results show that Spanish knowledge diminishes between generations; 82% of the so-called second generation (i.e. the US-born children of immigrants) speak Spanish ‘very well’ or ‘pretty well,’ but only 47% of the third generation do (Taylor et al., 2012).

Lopez et al.’s (2017) analysis of a subsequent Pew Center survey shows a similar trend. In that analysis, researchers compared individuals’ speaking ability in English and Spanish: respondents who reported speaking both languages ‘very well’ or ‘pretty well’ were considered bilingual, and the remainder were classified as either ‘English dominant’ or ‘Spanish dominant’ (so people classified as ‘dominant’ in a language also included monolinguals). The foreign-born were most likely to be Spanish dominant, although almost one-third of them were bilingual. In the second generation, almost everyone was bilingual or English dominant, and people in the third generation or higher were most often English dominant, with only a quarter reporting speaking both languages well (see Table 2.3).

Table 2.3 English- and Spanish-speaking ability among Latinxs
	English dominant or monolingual	Bilingual	Spanish dominant or monolingual
Foreign-born	7%	32%	61%
Second generation	43%	51%	6%
Third or higher generation	75%	24%	–
All Latinxs	28%	36%	36%
Source: Lopez et al. (2017).

Taking into account these data as well as the ACS statistics on English knowledge and home use that we presented earlier, we have seen that almost all Latinxs born in the US are proficient in English, and the vast majority are either English dominant or bilingual, while the grandchildren of immigrants are either monolingual in English or English dominant. This pattern is consistent not only in studies based on Census Bureau and Pew Center data (e.g. Alba, 2004; Lopez et al., 2017; Taylor et al., 2012; Veltman, 2000), but also ethnographic research (e.g. Schecter & Bayley, 2002; Zentella, 1997a) and studies using a combination of surveys and interviews (e.g. Bills et al., 1999; Porcel, 2006; Portes & Rumbaut, 2001; Rivera-Mills, 2001). In other words, among the children and grandchildren of Spanish-speaking immigrants, the tendency for language shift to English parallels the linguistic trajectories of previous immigrant groups. This pattern holds even in Miami, with its high density of Spanish-speakers and their relatively higher socio-economic status (Carter & Lynch, 2015).

The well-documented pattern of language shift among the children and grandchildren of Spanish-speaking immigrants demonstrates that the apparent vitality and continued presence of Spanish has been the result of continued immigration, rather than intergenerational language transmission and maintenance (Jenkins, 2018; Rumbaut, 2009; Silva-Corvalán, 2004; Veltman, 2000). Further, in addition to disproving the enduring myth that Spanish-speaking immigrants and their offspring don’t learn English, the pattern of intergenerational shift makes it clear that it is Spanish, not English, that is at risk. Nonetheless, despite the universality of English acquisition and the predominance of language shift, we don’t want to suggest that Spanish language loss is universal or inevitable, as we’ll see in the next section.

Spanish maintenance against the odds

As we discussed earlier in this chapter, the usefulness of the Census Bureau’s statistics about Spanish in the US is constrained by the questions that they don’t ask as much as by the ones that they do (Leeman, 2004, 2018c). In particular, we saw that the lack of a question about how well respondents speak non-English languages prevents us from gauging the degree of bilingualism among home speakers of Spanish. Another gap in the data is that the ACS doesn’t ask respondents what language(s) they know, but only whether they speak a language other than English at home (see Figure 2.2). As a result, people who know Spanish but don’t speak it at home are invisible in the Census Bureau’s statistics and thus some Spanish maintenance goes unrecorded (Leeman, 2004).

In fact, various researchers have found evidence of Spanish maintenance (in addition to English proficiency) into and past the third generation. For example, Alba (2004) found that in some border communities, such as Laredo, Texas, more than 40% of the third generation report speaking at least some Spanish at home. And in their research examining language maintenance among the children and grandchildren of immigrants in Southern California, Rumbaut et al. (2006) found that 17% of third-generation Mexican Americans surveyed spoke Spanish fluently. More anecdotally, Carter and Lynch (2015) attest that it is not hard to find third-generation bilinguals with high levels of Spanish proficiency in Miami, while Rivera-Mills (2012: 28) reports a ‘resilient use of Spanish into the fourth generation’ in her Arizona study. So too, in Anderson-Mejías’ (2005) Texas research, there were several fourth- and fifth-generation participants fluent in Spanish. Some Spanish-speakers actively resist the pressure to assimilate to English monolingualism by using Spanish in their public and private lives. For some, the anti-Spanish and anti-Latinx policies and discourse of recent years have strengthened their resolve to do so (Sánchez-Muñoz & Amezcua, 2019). One manifestation of this resistance on social media is the hashtag #stillspeakingspanishyque.

García et al. (2001) also point to the ongoing use of Spanish by Puerto Ricans in New York. Their work challenges the binary conceptualization of language knowledge and use in studies of language maintenance (i.e. either you know a language or you don’t; either you’re speaking English or you’re speaking Spanish), as well as the assumption that language shift is a one-way street. Instead, García and her colleagues describe Puerto Ricans’ patterns of language use as a vaivén (‘swaying, back-and-forth’), emphasizing not only the back-and-forth connections and mobility of Puerto Ricans in New York and Puerto Rico, but also the continued use, and symbolic importance, of Spanish even among people who more traditional, binary models might consider to have undergone shift to English.

Factors impacting Spanish maintenance or shift

In our discussion of the ethnolinguistic vitality framework we outlined the three kinds of factors that shape patterns of language maintenance and shift. In the previous sections, we saw that while favorable demographic factors can contribute to somewhat higher rates of Spanish maintenance, they are insufficient to buck the overall trend of shift to English. In particular, areas with greater numbers and density of Spanish-speakers do tend to have more Spanish maintenance, but members of the third and subsequent generations who have maintained Spanish are still in the minority.

As for status factors, language ideologies constructing the US as an English-speaking nation, the negative portrayal of Spanish and the racialization of Latinxs are all aspects of the subordination of Spanish that contribute to its intergenerational loss. These ideologies and processes (which we discuss in Chapter 4) also shape institutional support factors. Generally speaking, there is little governmental support for Spanish maintenance, and educational policies also favor shift to English. Indeed, for the children of immigrants who learn Spanish at home, the start of school often also marks the transition to English dominance. In contrast, when educational policy promotes additive bilingualism, this has been shown to have a positive impact on Spanish maintenance (see Chapter 9).

In addition to these group factors and societal trends, researchers have also examined individual factors. For example, there are differences among siblings based on birth order. Specifically, first- and/or second-born children are more likely to retain Spanish than their younger siblings (Beaudrie & Ducar, 2005; Parada, 2016; Valdés, 2005). Gender has also been seen to play a role in some cases, with girls showing higher levels of proficiency than boys (Arriagada, 2005; Lutz, 2006; Portes & Rumbaut, 2001; Zentella, 1997a). Some of these gendered patterns might be accounted for by social networks; among the Puerto Rican children in Zentella’s (1997a) study, girls were expected to help around the house and stick close to home, and thus were more likely to interact with other Puerto Ricans. In contrast, boys were allowed more freedom to go out of the neighborhood and thus developed more friendships with children who did not speak Spanish. Further, mothers seem to play a more important role in intergenerational transmission than do fathers (Arriagada, 2005; Velázquez, 2018). Cashman’s (2017) research on patterns of language use among queer Latinxs (discussed further in Chapter 6) offers an important reminder both that gender identities are not binary (i.e. there are more identities than just ‘male’ and ‘female’), and that there is a need to take intersectional identities into account. Along these lines, Cashman found that for some of her participants, the homophobia of their biological families led to severed ties and reduced participation in Spanish-speaking networks.

Although societal forces work against Spanish maintenance, parents’ and caretakers’ efforts to use and pass their language on to children can serve as a counter-balance (Fishman, 2001). As we noted above, parents are not always successful in their efforts to transmit their language to their children, and for this reason researchers have sought to investigate the language maintenance success stories in order to identify the specific behaviors and language practices that have had a positive impact (e.g. Schecter & Bayley, 2002; Velázquez, 2018). One finding emerging from such research is that the desire to pass on Spanish is not enough on its own. Instead, language socialization through shared activities and sustained interactions in Spanish was important as was participation in language-focused and literacy-related events, whether these were centered on religious activities, schoolwork, movie watching or pleasure reading (e.g. Schecter & Bayley, 2002; Velázquez, 2018).

It is not only parents and caretakers who make decisions for their children; children themselves and the adults they become also obviously play a role. People also change over time, and some who reject Spanish as children later make a conscious effort to recover and strengthen their ability. Silva-Corvalán (1994) uses the phrase ‘cyclical bilingualism’ to refer to the phenomenon of people learning Spanish at home from their parents, undergoing shift to English after entering school, and then seeking to reacquire Spanish in their teens or twenties. It’s likely that some such individuals are included in the reports of fourth- and fifth-generation Spanish-speakers cited above. Relatedly, Villa and Rivera-Mills (2009) use the phrase ‘reacquisition generation’ in reference to heritage speakers of Spanish who enroll in Spanish courses and, like Silva-Corvalán, they stress the motivation as being to (re)connect with ethnolinguistic heritage. Just as the loss of Spanish is often accompanied by shame and regret, maintaining Spanish and/or passing it on to one’s children is often associated with pride and satisfaction as well as other positive social indicators (Portes & Rumbaut, 2005; Schecter & Bayley, 2002; Velázquez, 2018).

Conclusions and Connections

In this chapter we delved deeper into the statistics about Spanish and Spanish-speakers in the US and used these statistics to demonstrate their great diversity. Speakers of Spanish claim a vast range of racial identities and national origins, and they include recent immigrants as well as people whose families have been in the US for many generations. So too, they live in many different kinds of places across the country, with some living in communities where a majority of people speak Spanish at home, and others in communities where Spanish is quite rare. The next chapter will offer a deeper exploration of this diversity, as well as a review of the history of Spanish and the people who have spoken it in what is now the US since Christopher Columbus arrived in the Americas more than five centuries ago.

The statistics on language knowledge and use that we examined in this chapter show that while not all Spanish-speaking immigrants are proficient in English (especially recent arrivals), essentially everyone in the second and subsequent generations is. Spanish maintenance, in contrast, is more variable. On one hand, the children and grandchildren of Spanish-speaking immigrants largely follow the three-generational pattern typical of earlier European immigrants. In other words, although about half of the second generation is bilingual (with most of the remainder dominant in English), by the third generation English is the norm. On the other hand, exceptions to this rule demonstrate that Spanish maintenance or reacquisition is possible. In Chapter 4 we critically analyze the language ideologies that work against Spanish maintenance, while in Chapters 5 and 6 we delve deeper into the role of Spanish in Latinx identities. Chapter 9 examines the role of ideologies in educational policies and the ways in which English-only policies contribute to language shift, as well as alternative approaches that can allow multilingualism to flourish. Of course, one goal of this book is to help make that possible.

Discussion Questions and Activities for Chapter 2

(1)Read Daniel José Older’s ‘I rejected Spanish as a kid. Now I wish we’d embrace our native languages,’ published in the 2019 volume, The Good Immigrant: 26 Writers Reflect on America (available online via Time Magazine at https://time.com/ 5528434/daniel-jose-older-spanish). Analyze his childhood rejection of Spanish and the societal factors that influenced it, as well as his sense of loss. What made him want to recover and strengthen his ability in Spanish and how did he go about doing so? Additionally, you may wish to compare Older’s experience with the myth that immigrants and their children refuse to learn English.

(2)In recent years, various organizations have pointed out that there are now more Spanish-speakers in the US than in many Latin American countries. Along the same lines, the Instituto Cervantes (2018) has suggested that US will surpass Spain in the number of speakers of Spanish (see, for example, ‘Number of Spanish speakers tops 577 million’ from the newspaper El País, available in English at https://elpais.com/elpais/2018/07/05/inenglish/1530780465_701866.html?fbclid=IwAR2k3wy1fLg_8czqbxhALxFqIeQhA0TgQuL71pjbo1zaTw8gz-ag7-iPUZA and in Spanish at https://elpais.com/cultura/2018/07/03/actualidad/1530619272_823616.html). What is this prediction based on? What factors might limit the growth in the US’ Spanish-speaking population? How are Spanish-speakers and the status of Spanish in the US different from other countries? Finally, why might the Instituto Cervantes (which receives funding from the government of Spain) be interested in publicizing and celebrating the number of speakers of Spanish in the US?

(3)In our discussions of demographics and patterns of language knowledge and use, we have made reference to different ‘generations’ of immigrants and their offspring. Consider the connotations of labeling someone as a ‘first-generation American’ versus a ‘second-generation immigrant.’ Which makes the most sense and why? In some discussions of immigration, people use the term ‘generation 1.5’ to refer to people who immigrated to the US as children. In what ways is generation 1.5 similar to and different from first- and second-generation immigrants? What patterns of language knowledge and use would you predict for generation 1.5? Are there any pros or cons to using this term?

(4)One issue that we return to repeatedly in this book is the role of Spanish in the construction of Latinx identity. In other words, can someone ‘really’ be Latinx without speaking Spanish? Can you think of examples from public discourse or interactions with friends in which the issue came up? Watch Remezcla’s Do you have to speak Spanish to be Latino? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKmrVdF17Lw), Mitú’s video Are you a REAL Latino if you DON’T speak Spanish? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNxPuQaGmNM) and BBC Mundo’s video of rapper Andrew Figgy Baby Figueroa (https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-50395013/i-m-hispanic-but-can-t-speak-spanish). Discuss your examples and/or the videos in light of the statistics and patterns of language maintenance and shift discussed in this chapter. Do you think demographic trends will have an impact on how people understand the relationship of Spanish to Latinx identity?

(5)In this chapter we identified several challenges in using Census Bureau data to determine how many people speak Spanish in the US. Sum up these challenges (as well as any others you might identify) and consider how they could be addressed. If it were up to you, how would you change the Census Bureau’s language questions (see Figure 2.2)? Are there any other language-related questions you would want to add? If you couldn’t make any changes to the Census Bureau’s language questions, what other methodologies might you use to complement the data and gain a better sense of how many people speak Spanish in the US?

Note

(1)Moreover, Brokaw seems to simultaneously suggest two contradictory ‘problems’: (1) a high rate of intermarriage; and (2) a failure of Latinxs to integrate and assimilate.