German American Bilingualism: cui malo? Mother Tongue and Socioeconomic Status among the Second Generation in 1940

Kamphoefner, Walter D.

doi:10.2307/2547160

Cited by 7 publications

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“…This Supreme Court ruling led to a large number of federal and local programs designed to improve the educational performance of those who learn English in school rather than at home. Although bilingual education did exist in the early twentieth century (Gerstle, 1989;Kamphoefner, 1994), it was concentrated among certain groups, such as Germans in the Midwest, and there was no legal right to it. Indeed, the unavailability of educational training in any language but English probably encouraged the early dropout of many students whose parents spoke another tongue (Perlmann, 1988).…”

Section: Competing Views Of the Socioeconomic Trajectory Of The Seconmentioning

confidence: 99%

The New Second Generation in the United States

Farley

Alba

2002

International Migration Review

208

189

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Immigration to the United States accelerated in the late 1960s. Since many migrants are young people who form families shortly after arrival, there is now a large and rapidly growing second generation ‐ many of them now young adults who recently completed school and started their careers. There is much speculation about whether this second generation will assimilate into the middle class rapidly or form a new urban underclass. The last census to ask parental birthplace questions was 1970, so an absence of data precluded testing hypotheses about the social and economic progress of the new second generation. In 1994, the Census Bureau returned an inquiry about parental birthplace to the Current Population Survey so there is now an annual national sample of about 16,000 second‐generation Americans. Data from the 1998 and 2000 surveys were pooled and analyzed. This investigation demonstrates that these comprehensive new data provide valuable descriptive information about today's second generation and permit the cautious testing of hypotheses concerning social and economic assimilation. They reveal a great diversity among the second generation depending upon country of origin but, in most comparisons, today's second generation exceed their first‐generation parents in educational attainment, occupational achievement and economic status. In many comparisons, second‐generation groups have educational attainments exceeding those of third‐ and higher‐generation whites and African Americans. These data refute the hypothesis that today's second generation will languish in poverty. Nevertheless, intergenerational progress was less for persons of Puerto Rican and Mexican heritage than for those of Asian, European or South American heritage.

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Section: Competing Views Of the Socioeconomic Trajectory Of The Seconmentioning

confidence: 99%

The New Second Generation in the United States

Farley

Alba

2002

International Migration Review

208

189

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“…In 1910 the percentage unable to speak English was highest in rural areas (25.2%), slightly lower in large cities (22.3%), and lowest in small cities (20.3%); similar patterns were present in 1920 (Kamphoefner 1994 tongues "beyond the second generation was higher in rural than in urban areas" (Kamphoefner 1994, 860).6 Haugen (1969, 237) pointed to the persistence of Norwegian in communities in South Dakota and Wisconsin, noting that "at the grass-roots level the neighborhood spirit has played a powerful role" in language retention. Kloss (1966, 207) describes several "language islands" favorable to language maintenance (e.g., German in eastern Pennsylvania and French in southern Louisiana), regions with various sized communities, but largely rural.…”

Section: Demography and English Acquisitionmentioning

confidence: 53%

English Acquisition by Immigrants to the United States at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century

Labov¹

1998

American Speech

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JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. FOR THOSE COMING to the United States at the turn of the twentieth century, new linguistic and national boundaries replaced accustomed, if not always loved, ethnic allegiances. For those immigrants whose English was minimal or nonexistent, access to needed resources, economic as well as educational, was limited. Residence with kin or others who spoke the same language eased some of the struggles of the new land. Throughout this century the countries of origin of immigrants have changed, but the difficulties of becoming American in language as well as culture have remained constant.At the beginning of the twentieth century, almost 15% of the population was foreign born, the largest proportion ever in this century (US Bureau of Census 1997). Periods of high immigration of non-English speakers have been accompanied by fears that the United States would not remain an English speaking country, for example, at the founding of the country (Franklin 1753) and now (Veltman 1983; Labov 1994). Crawford (1992) traces the development of exclusionary policies in the United States and quotes Theodore Roosevelt who wrote in a World War I appeal: "We must have one flag. We must also have but one language" (Roosevelt 1917).Yet continued residence in this country has resulted in English acquisition, if not for the immigrants, then for their children or grandchildren. Scholars have identified factors that hindered or accelerated this process but have not had data with which they could map the factors directly onto the neighborhoods in which immigrants lived. This study makes use of such data to examine two closely related questions: How did the acquisition of English vary across first language? Which demographic factors contributed most to the transition to English for immigrants? It verifies quantitatively that those who settled before 1910 in urban areas with speakers of the same first language learned English more slowly than those, regardless of first language, who settled in linguistically diverse neighborhoods. 368This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Sat, 7 Feb 2015 00:23:31 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ENGLISH ACQUISITION BY IMMIGRANTS IMMIGRATION AND ENGLISH ACQUISITIONTo describe the immigrants' linguistic path, Fishman (1966b) makes use of his concept of "domains of language behavior": family, neighborhood (friends and acquaintances), mass media, religious organizations, and occupation (or school).Most late 19th and early 20th century immigrants to America from Eastern and Southern Europe began as compound bilinguals with each language assigned to separate and minimally overlapping domains. With the passage of time ... their bilingualism became characterized,...

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“…They have been discussed and studied overwhelmingly in terms of maintenance or loss of their native tongues, seldom if ever in terms of their learning and mastery of English. Despite how widespread such views seem to be, we have not found any systematic data presented on the learning of English in such communities (though see the related and relevant work by Labov 1998 andKamphoefner 1994).…”

Section: Translation and Emphasis Ours]mentioning

confidence: 74%

“GOOD Old Immigrants of Yesteryear,” Who Didn't Learn English: Germans in Wisconsin

Wilkerson¹,

Salmons²

2008

American Speech

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One myth about language and immigration in North America is that nineteenth-century immigrants typically became bilingual almost immediately after arriving, yet little systematic data has been presented for this view. We present quantitative and qualitative evidence about Germans in Wisconsin, where, into the twentieth century, many immigrants and their descendants remained monolingual, decades after immigration had ceased. Even those who claimed to speak English often had limited command. Quantitative data from the 1910 Census, augmented by qualitative evidence from newspapers, court records, literary texts, and other sources, suggest that Germans of various socioeconomic backgrounds often lacked English language skills. German continued to be the primary language in numerous Wisconsin communities, and some second-and third-generation descendants of immigrants were still monolingual as adults. Understanding this history can help inform contemporary debates about language and immigration and help dismantle the myth that successful immigrant groups of yesterday owed their prosperity to an immediate, voluntary shift to English.In the debates now raging over language and immigration, it is widely asserted by media commentators, members of the general public, and even scholars that earlier immigrants learned English quickly and that their children came to prefer it overwhelmingly over their imported or "heritage" languages. This view has recently been exploited as part of an effort to fault contemporary immigrants for purportedly not learning English fast enough. In fact, while considerable research has investigated the languages immigrants have brought to the United States over the centuries and the process of language shift to English, we find a striking gap when it comes to understanding when and how well these immigrants initially learned English.In this article, we first offer an overview of some popular and scholarly misconceptions about the learning of English among earlier immigrants. We then present quantitative evidence on the learning of English among ethnic American SpeechPublished by Duke University Press

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German American Bilingualism: cui malo? Mother Tongue and Socioeconomic Status among the Second Generation in 1940

Cited by 7 publications

References 0 publications

The New Second Generation in the United States

The New Second Generation in the United States

English Acquisition by Immigrants to the United States at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century

“GOOD Old Immigrants of Yesteryear,” Who Didn't Learn English: Germans in Wisconsin

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