By: secundio valladares  (Page 7/17)

The only exception to this iron law, as Fishman states, is that something else remains among the Hispanics, a generation to the maximum, due to the migratory flow of monolingual Hispanic immigrants in the Latin areas of North American cities. As a result of this constant flow, the concentration of Spanish speakers continues being high, and thus the retention of the Spanish language beyond the second generation that marks the iron law results as an economic value strategy between the inhabitants of the Latin areas. Things are like this to such an extent that, sometimes, the paradox that second or third generation Hispanics that have not learned Spanish at home because their parents or brothers have already stopped speaking it learn it in the street in contact with new, just arrived immigrants.           

This situation demonstrates that the processes of linguistic assimilation and bilingualism are not linear or irreversible, but that are subject to the swing of the extra-linguistic conditions, whether social or economic. Thus, for example, the defenders of Official English/English Only would have to be asked why second and third generation Hispanics, that habitually only speak English, continue living in the districts where their parents and grandparents lived and where there is a concentration of just arrived immigrants. But this is an insidious question that perhaps may lead people to conclude that the control of the English language is as ineffective with respect to the social mobility among Hispanics as with Blacks. More than 25% of the Hispanics live under the threshold of poverty, a percentage that is higher than that of Hispanics that do not speak English. Among the old immigrant groups coming from Europe, the acquisition of the English language and the corresponding loss of their culture of origin came often from a remarkable mobility in the social scale, which worked as the compensation for the painful experience of transculturation. Among the Hispanics, nevertheless, and some other immigrant groups of the two last decades of the 20 ^th century, the first two elements of the equation have occurred: the acquisition of the English language and the loss of their culture, but for a great portion of them, the reward for compensating the social mobility has been an unattainable dream. This makes the postulates of the assimilationist radicals look ridiculous, as is the case of Richard Rodriguez:

Those in favor of bilingualism reject the value and necessity of assimilation... they do not realize that loss of the private individuality that the assimilation entails is compensated by the gain and acquisition of a public individuality... This is what has happened to me: until I was able to think of myself as an “American” and not as a foreigner in a foreign society, I was able to look for the rights and opportunities necessary to develop my public individuality. The social and political advantages which I enjoy as a citizen began the day in which I began to think that my name was not Richard Rodriguez, but Rich-heard Road-ree-guess... I celebrate the day that I acquired my new name... it was the day I raised my hand in class and with a loud voice and signs I addressed (in English) to full class of faces that watched me expectantly. (1982, p. 27-28)