2.1 Diglossia, assimilation, and bilingualism among the hispanics  (Page 8/17)

Here is the story of the assimilation experienced by Mr. Road-ree-guess . Like him, numerous second generation Hispanic students have shared identical scholastic experience without any kind of guarantee, at least for a great portion of them, that this process of linguistic assimilation guarantees a social ascent. In the last decade, multiple studies have been carried out on linguistic assimilation of second generation immigrants in the school scope. I limit myself to mention one of the pioneering studies by Alexander Portes and Lingxin Hao (2001) on the linguistic assimilation and loss of maternal languages between second generation American students. The survey is of 1992-93 and it was applied to 5,266 students in the eighth and ninth grade, between 12 and 16-years-old, in schools in Miami-Fort Lauderdale and San Diego; two metropolitan areas that attract a strong contingent of immigration. Miami is the front door for the Caribbean and South Americans students, while San Diego is the destination of Mexican immigrants (80% of the Hispanic immigrants) and Asians. Altogether, this consisted of 42 schools in both metropolitan areas, with 77 nationalities, and a concentration of children of immigrants from the Caribbean and Center and South America in schools in Florida, and students of Mexican or Asian origin in schools of San Diego. The general results once again confirm the iron law formulated by Fishman. The knowledge of the English language was practically universal among the present children of immigrants and their degree of competence was corresponding with their scholastic level. Besides, the preference of the English language was dominant, since two thirds of the young people of the sample chose it over the language of their parents. Consequently, the linguistic loyalty of the students of all the origins had changed to English, with exception of those of Mexican origin, of which only 45% preferred English. The preference or linguistic loyalty to the English language was overwhelming among students of Colombian, Cuban, and Nicaraguan descent. This fast transition to the English language was accompanied by the loss of competence of the foreign language: most of the students could not speak their parent’s language; only 16% used it with fluidity. However, most of the those that participated in the studies of Latin descent, as opposed to Asians, conserved a certain dominion of Spanish, those that declared a limited preference for English in the case of the Mexicans, just like those that declared a dominant preference like the Cubans.

The general conclusion of the study, according to Portes and Hao, is that there are no grounds for alarm of linguistic fragmentation in the U.S., as denounced by the nativist North Americans of U.S. English . On the contrary, what is in danger is the preservation of a certain dominion of the original languages. And, finally, that the process of adaptation of the second generation will follow the guidelines of the old scheme of the assimilationist iron law: the children will slowly abandon the language and identities of their parents, they will embrace the American culture, and will obtain a place in the economic and social scopes of the new society.