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English in America: A Study of Linguistic Integration

Findings

• There exists an English Acquisition Gap between Hispanic immigrants and immigrants of other ancestries. Seventy-one percent of the foreign born speak English proficiently, with different ancestries acquiring English at widely different levels. The ancestries above the median are diverse in continent of origin and native language. The ancestries at the bottom of the scale are disproportionately of Mexican or Central American origin.
• The English Acquisition Gap cannot be explained by the relative recency of immigration. When comparing different immigrant groups, it is crucial to control for any premature conclusions arising from different times of entry into the United States. When recency is taken into account, the English Acquisition Gap between the Hispanic and the non-Hispanic foreign-born is still evident; in fact, the gap exceeds 20 percentage points.
• The English Acquisition Gap is evident between the most prominent immigrant groups, and cannot be explained by "issues" with the Spanish language. Recent arrivals from Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe are significantly more likely to learn English than natives of Mexico and Central America. Sub-Saharan Africans and Russians speak English at well above the 71 percent national average, while Mexicans and Guatemalans speak English at the lowest levels of proficiency. Nonetheless, many groups that hail from Spanish-speaking countries speak English at well above the national average, including Venezuelans and Argentineans.
• There exists a Citizenship Acquisition Gap between Hispanic immigrants and immigrants of other ancestries. As with language, different ancestry groups display vastly different rates of naturalization in the United States. For immigrants that arrived in the United States between 1980 and March 2000, the naturalization rate was 26 percent. However, on one end of the scale, Vietnamese immigrants are naturalized at twice this rate. On the other hand, Mexican immigrants are naturalized at only half the national average. These varying rates are evident on both a national and state level.
• The English Acquisition Gap may be explained in part by the phenomenon of Demographic Dominance. The U.S. immigrant population, once made up of a diverse mix of nationalities, has become dominated by a single nation. Though the Mexican-born percentage of the immigrant population in 2000 is roughly identical to the German-born percentage of the population in 1890, the lack of representation by other leading immigrant nations may have led to the development of a de facto "second national language." In 1890, the combined total of the second, third and fourth most common immigrant homelands represented more than 44 percent of the foreign born. In 2000, the nations in the same standing accounted for just over 10 percent.

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