Fluency for Hispanic immigrants increases across generations, according to a new report released by the Pew Hispanic Center, a research organization based in Washington, D.C.
A survey of 14,000 Hispanic adults revealed that only 23 percent of Hispanic immigrants reported being able to speak English very well. However, 88 percent of their U.S.-born adult children reported that they speak English very well, and the figure was 94 percent among later generations of Hispanic adults.
“From our research we see that English is the most dominant among later generations of Hispanic adults. The Spanish doesn’t vanish from generation to generation. The English simply becomes more pronounced,” says D’Vera Cohn, co-author of the report and a senior writer at the Pew Research Center.
The report begins by analyzing differences in English ability and use among several generations of Hispanics.
Just 7 percent of foreign-born Hispanics speak “mainly” or “only” English at home, still about half of their children do. In contrast, four times as many foreign-born Hispanics speak “mainly” or “only” English at work. Fewer than 43 percent of foreign-born Hispanics speak mainly or only Spanish on the job, versus the three-quarters who do so at home.
The report indicates that Hispanic immigrants are more likely to speak English very well and use it often if they are highly educated, arrived in the United States as children or have been in the country for a long time.
