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Assessing Hispanics' Assimilaton

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 26, 2008

Among those threatened by immigration - legal and illegal - it is an article of faith that vast numbers of new arrivals are fracturing American traditions, recalibrating our values and undermining our language. Spanish spoken on the streets of L.A. is, to those inclined to see it that way, evidence of something essential slipping out of our culture, or of a scary kind of reverse assimilation. Instead of becoming more like Americans, the fear is that immigrants are trying to absorb parts of this country into Latin America.

Those are understandable worries, though often inflamed by irresponsible partisans who capitalize on them to advance their nativist agenda. Happily, a new report by the Census Bureau does much to put those fears in perspective. Drawing on its 2007 American Community Survey, the bureau concludes that the number of native Spanish speakers who declare themselves fluent in English is notably on the rise - just over 51 percent in 2007, compared with just under 47 percent in 2000. Also rising is the percentage of foreign-born residents who have sought and received citizenship. Those findings echo earlier studies, including a 2007 analysis by the Pew Hispanic Center, demonstrating the rapidly growing English skills of second-generation Americans. It found that although only 23 percent of immigrants were fluent in English, 88 percent of their children had mastered the language. By the third generation, it was 94 percent.

Those gains suggest the enthusiasm of these new arrivals for their adopted country and argue for their absorption, not their demonization. Granted, these percentages lump legal and illegal immigrants together, and evidence suggests that those here illegally are less likely to master the language. Border control and a sputtering U.S. economy have done much to deter illegal immigration over the last several years, and may be contributing marginally to the increased fluency of the immigrant population that remains.

But that's an argument for legalizing families, not for imagining them as a threat to our cohesion. American culture grows and adapts as new immigrants redefine it over the generations, and the same can be said of the English language. We should embrace that evolution, not hold it at bay with false and alarmist arguments about the threat to American values.

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