Article published Nov 30, 2007
Few Hispanic immigrants speak English
November 30, 2007
By Stephen Dinan - Only about half of Hispanic immigrants who have earned U.S. citizenship can speak English well or even somewhat well, a new study has found, even though the citizenship test usually requires immigrants to demonstrate English proficiency.
The Pew Hispanic Center's study also found most Hispanic immigrants overall — U.S. citizens, legal immigrants and illegal aliens — don't speak English in their homes or at their workplace, though their children do.
Pew examined years of polling and found only 35 percent of Hispanic naturalized citizens speak English very well and that another 17 percent speak it pretty well. But 11 percent of naturalized citizens said they don't speak English at all.
“It's possible several years ago the tests weren't taken with the same degree of seriousness,” said Rakesh Kochhar, associate director for research at the center, a nonpartisan think tank.
English-language skills of immigrants have become a major point of focus in the immigration debate. The presidential candidates in both parties now agree on the need to encourage better English, but Congress is in the middle of a fight over whether the Bush administration should sue a business that requires employees to speak English on the job.
The citizenship test is administered as a series of questions immigrants must answer. The law does allow elderly immigrants to become citizens without having to demonstrate English skills.
The Bush administration's Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is suing a Salvation Army store in Massachusetts, charging that the store discriminated by giving two employees a year to learn English and then firing them when they failed to do so.
D'Vera Cohn, one of the authors of the report, said the bright side of the equation is that naturalized citizens speak English far better than noncitizens, and said by the second generation the vast majority of Hispanic immigrants do speak English well.
Only 23 percent of Hispanic immigrants speak English fluently, and another 12 percent speak it pretty well, but 88 percent of their adult children are fluent, the report found.
“For most immigrants, English is not the primary language they use in either setting. But for their grown children, it is,” the report's authors said.
Still, the report can only say how the previous generation of immigrants' children performed, it can't say how children of today's immigrants will do, said Steven A. Camarota, research director for the Center for Immigration Studies, which wants a crackdown on illegal entry into the U.S. and a slowdown in legal immigration.
“You're looking at adults who grew up in a time of very low immigration. The children being born to Hispanic immigrants today, or even in the '90s, are being born in a completely different environment,” he said.
He said the sheer size of today's Hispanic immigrant community and the businesses and media outlets that cater to them in Spanish makes their experience different.
That's not to say immigrants don't realize the value of English. Hispanic rights groups say the main impediment to learning English isn't will, but rather the dearth of English classes.
And 46 percent of Hispanics say lack of language skills is the biggest cause for discrimination against them — more than income, education, legal status or skin color.
SPEAKING ENGLISH
Below is a look at the English proficiency of the nation's Hispanic immigrant population in relationship to citizenship status.
U.S. citizens (percentages)
Very well.........................35
Pretty well.......................17
Just a little......................35
Not at all..........................11
Noncitizens (percentages)
Very well...........................14
Pretty well.........................11
Just a little........................52
Not at all............................21
Numbers may not add up to 100 percent because of rounding and omission of those who didn't know or refused to respond.
Source: Pew Hispanic Center
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