Friday, November 30, 2007

Speaking the language

Over at NRO, Mark Krikorian examines the results of a Pew Center poll on Hispanic immigrants and their use of English. The results are worrying. Back in the 19th and early 20th century, there was always one thing we could count on: that immigrants to this country would learn English. That might not be the case anymore, and it's not good for this country. The survey looks apparently at all Hispanic immigrants, not just illegals, but...imagine what the percentages below would look like for them:
The Pew Hispanic Center has released the results of a survey on Hispanic immigrant language use that is not as reassuring as they seem to think. (The report is here, with coverage by the L.A. Times and the WaPo.) They report, for instance, that 88-percent of American-born children of Hispanic immigrants speak English very well — that's nice, until you realize that it means that one out of eight doesn't speak English well. And even among the grandchildren of Hispanic immigrants, 6-percent report that they don't speak English well and 19-percent that they don't read it well — these are the native-born children of native-born Americans whose immigrant ancestors arrived decades ago. Other disturbing findings: fully 28-percent of Hispanic immigrants never use English on the job, and only 29-percent report using more English than Spanish at work. And among naturalized citizens — people who are supposed to have passed a language test — 11-percent report that they speak no English at all, with 35-percent speaking just a little.