To: neolib who wrote (176683 ) 12/7/2005 11:44:37 PM From: Bilow Read Replies (1) | Respond to Hi neolib; Re: "Not where I live amigo. "In my little rural eastern Oregon town, I've watched a very significant fraction of clerk positions in stores switch to Hispanic help largely because they are bilingual. Very few of the whites around here have passable Spanish, so who would you hire when 20% of your customers don't understand English well? "Despite public opinion to the contrary, the data suggest that U.S. Hispanics--both native born and immigrants--do learn and speak English. Moreover, they want their children to speak English (Veltman, 1988). After 10 to 15 years in the United States, some 75 percent of all Hispanic immigrants are speaking English regularly, and virtually all their children will speak English. continuing immigration does not delay the learning of English by immigrants who are already here or by the native born (Veltman, 1988).some 95 percent of the immigrant population will have Spanish for their mother tongue. However, only a bare majority of the native born will be given Spanish as their first language. This fact is of pivotal importance. after 14 years--as young adults--70 percent have abandoned the use of Spanish as a daily language. By the time they have spent 15 years in the United States, some 75 percent of all Hispanic immigrants are using English every day (Veltman, 1988, p. 44). ericdigests.org ...A Question of Long-term Health there are serious concerns about its long-term health. Studies show that the failure of many second- and third-generation Latinos to retain the language is depleting the pool of Spanish speakers. Yet that same pool is continually replenished by immigration. What will be the ultimate outcome of these seemingly contradictory trends?as U.S.-born Hispanics, for whom English is almost always the language of choice, seldom pass on Spanish to their offspring. point to a rapid shift to English among the children of immigrants. irrevocable intergenerational loss of Spanish here ," wrote Daniel Villa of New Mexico State University in one of many responses VISTA received after the posting of an inquiry on the Internet. Though Villa is conducting research that suggests it may not be happening any more, Michael Newman, a professor at New York University, sees evidence daily that Spanish is being lost . "It seems to me that Spanish is already following the usual immigrant pattern, in New York at least. I have in my classes any number of semi-speakers of Spanish and non-speakers who are Hispanic in origin. I have very few, if any, fully bilingual second-generation speakers ." ourworld.compuserve.com
