Language Acquisition and Retention in First-Generation Americans

Language Acquisition and

Retention in First-
Generation Americans
!
Hunter College, CUNY:
G e o g r a p h y 2 5 0

Lina Elsayed
Priyanka Verma
Fania Suarez Diaz
Esther Bannerman

1
Language Acquisition and Retention in First-Generation Americans

Abstract!! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
This paper examines the acquisition and retention first generation
Americans have of their immigrant parents’ native language. The purpose
of this study is to examine the impact of immigration on linguistic
proficiency. We propose that factors of immigration, such as the country
a person migrates from, influence the likelihood of immigrant parents to
pass down their native language to their American-born children, as well
as the way in which the language is acquired and the proficiency with
which it is retained. Through the conduction of 130 ethnolinguistic
surveys and 30 in-depth interviews among Hunter College students
between the ages of 18-25, we look to examine patterns in the
acquisition and retention first generation Americans have of their
immigrant parents’ native language. As American-born people, first
generation Americans are most likely to acquire English outside of home,
as well as establish academic, professional, and personal relationships
in the English language. However, a majority of these first generation
Americans come from households in which the main language spoken is
the native language of the immigrant parents and not English. Our aim is
to find patterns amongst these different immigrant households, and the
extent to which these patterns influence the acquisition and retention
their American-born children have on their parent’s native language. !

!
Introduction! !! ! ! ! ! ! !
! Communication is one of the most important interactions amongst
people. Although we have the choice to learn any foreign language, our
native country and the origin country of our parents can be very
influential regarding the languages we speak, and our level of proficiency
in those languages. Because we choose to communicate in any given
preferential language, factors such as country of birth don’t necessarily
limit our options regarding the acquisition of first language. This is seen
especially in cases of immigration, where children of immigrants acquire
as first language that native to their parents instead of that of their
country of birth. In this study we aim to look into how likely are first
generation Americans to retain their parents’ native language, as well as
understand what factors of immigration influence the likelihood of

2
Language Acquisition and Retention in First-Generation Americans

immigrants to pass down their native language to their American-born

children. !
! We hypothesized that the likelihood of these immigrant parents to
pass down their native language to their American born children would
be very high, given that these parents are most likely to speak the
language they feel most comfortable with at home (which in most cases
is their native language). Thus, meaning their American-born children
acquire their parent’s native language at home as first language, prior to
acquiring the language of their country of birth. With this same reasoning
we expect most children of immigrants to speak two or more languages,
given they are very likely to acquire English additionally to the language
they acquired at home.!
! First, we hope to answer our research question of how likely are
first generation Americans to retain their parents’ native language by
conducting an ethnolinguistic survey within our target population
(undergraduate Hunter College students between the ages of 18-25).
Then, we hope to gain insight into what factors influence immigrants to
pass down their native language to their American-born children by
conducting in-depth interviews within our same target population. In
these interviews we will ask questions pertaining to acquisition and
retention of languages, as well as the immigration experience, additional
to the same ethnolinguistic questions asked in the survey. Finally, we will
better understand and analyze our data by organizing it in a map
showing where the immigrant parents come from, which will help us find
patterns in the effects the source country of these immigrants has on
their likelihood to pass down their native language to their American-born
children.!
! There is a continuing indication of first generation Americans
retaining their parents’ native language. In this paper, we present data
from surveys, interviews, and maps that reflect the geographical
clustering of the source country of parents of first generation American
youth. This evidence addresses directly the source country of their
parents, most language spoken at home, and the level of proficiency in
the languages spoken. Therefore, it is important to examine the
immigrant parents’ language and its impact on their children in the
United States. In doing so, we give evidence that the language that is
retained from the immigrant parents by the U.S born children gives them

3
Language Acquisition and Retention in First-Generation Americans

the highly valuable advantage of being bilingual or multilingual in the

world’s most competitive economy, and growing globalized society.!

!
Background/Context ! ! ! ! !
!
! The number of immigrants in the United States has steadily grown
over the last decade. The nation’s total immigrant population reached a
record of 40.4 million in 2011, according to an analysis of Census Bureau
data by the Pew Hispanic Center. Since 2007 alone, the number of
immigrants living in the U.S. increased by 2.4 million. According to the
New York Times, Asians are the largest group that have migrated to the
United States. And according to the Pew research Center, in 2012 New
York was recorded once again as the second state with the largest
percentage of population made up by immigrants, with an impressive
22.7% (holding their place in the ranking since 1990). !
! These immigrants come from different countries and speak different
languages. Some of them have hold on to their native language while
others have lost it. The older they are when they immigrate to the U.S.
the more likely they are to retain their language with a higher level of
proficiency. Immigrants that arrive to the United States have different
backgrounds that represent different cultures, ethnicities, and languages.
There have been several empirical studies that investigate the language
retention on immigrants themselves. One study was conducted by
Rumbaut, Massey, and Bean in 2006, which shows the immigrant
language retention in Southern California. Another strand examines the
differences in retention of language between foreign-born and first
generation children, in places such as Canada and California. A rather
different picture is provided by findings from studies that have gone as
far as to examine language retention in the second generation, like the
study conducted by Portes and Hao in 1998, which concluded only a
minority of second generation Americans remain fluent in their immigrant
grandparents’ native language.

4
Language Acquisition and Retention in First-Generation Americans

!
Methodology! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
!
! This paper is a study on the acquisition and retention first
generation Americans have of their immigrant parents’ native language.
Using a random method to select respondents, we conducted a
structured ethnolinguistic survey interviewing 130 undergraduate Hunter
College students between the ages of 18 and 25. This survey asked
demographic questions such as age, gender, country of birth, and
country of birth of the father and the mother. It also included questions
concerning linguistic information; such as: main language spoken at
home, all languages spoken, level of proficiency in these languages, and
way in which these languages were acquired/learned.!
! Using a stratified method to select respondents, we conducted
thirty interviews within the same population representing an equal
amount of both genders. These interviews were structured with the same
ethnolinguistic questions we asked in our survey. However, we also
included an additional eight questions to look further into the dynamics
of the languages spoken by our interviewees, as well as understand
more about their immigration experience. !
! In order to broaden the geographic scale from the local to the
regional and national level, Geographic Information System (GIS)
software was used to enable the spatial analysis of the source country of
the parents of first generation Americans. The data used to create this
map was the birth country of the two parents. We decided that the
mother ’s birth country would be used as the source country of the
respondent. There were a couple reasons why the mother ’s birth country
was chosen as opposed to the father ’s birth country, especially in
records where the parent’s came from two different countries. First,
some respondents did not have any information about their father ’s
country of birth, but every single one had information about their
mother ’s country of birth. Second, in almost all cases with parents born
in two different countries, respondents tend to be associate with their
mother ’s country more than their father ’s country. This can be seen as
these respondents had knowledge of their mother ’s native language at a

5
Language Acquisition and Retention in First-Generation Americans

higher level of proficiency than that of their father ’s. This was a very
interesting find from our data and thus, our map depicted this
information. !
! Quantum GIS (QGIS) software was used to carry out the GIS
aspect of the research. The shapefiles of the continents came from Esri
and the layer of countries in point format came from United Nations-
Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Initially, we tried a traditional
choropleth map for the task because it would be able to show what we
needed. When we created the map, it did not do justice to our data
because only a few countries lit up and a lot of the countries that we had
no respondents from stood out. Not only did it make it hard to find a
spatial pattern, it was not pleasing to the eyes as well. So instead, a
graduated symbol map of the countries seemed to be the most suitable
to illustrate the data. This is because it would allow us to show the
number of people from a specific source country with different sized
symbols based on the times they are repeated. We figured that the map
would turn out to be very interesting since countries like China, Mexico
and Russia were the source country of many of our respondents which
meant that there would be a larger dot in these parts of the world. It
would also help in determining the continents of these source countries
more than the choropleth map. !
!
!
Data!! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
!
! Data was collected over a period of four weeks. We had 130 survey
respondents, all undergraduate students from Hunter College between
the ages of 18-25. Majority of our survey responses were conducted in
an introductory course to Geography, the rest were conducted in two
smaller classes of the Childhood Education major. We conducted 30
interviews with random students that come from different backgrounds.
The data that was collected reflects the diversity of the United States as
well as New York state, thanks to the fact that Hunter College is the 9th
most diverse school in the country (National Center for Education
Statistics, NCES). !

6
Language Acquisition and Retention in First-Generation Americans

! Although our research only focused on the retention of language in

first generation Americans, it was hard to get data specifically from just
this target group. The surveys were given to everyone in the Introduction
to Geography class and the two smaller Education classes, and because
of time constraints it was not feasible to just get them filled out by
students whose parents were immigrants. In a way this worked to our
advantage because even though some of the data would not be relevant
to our immediate research, it helped us gain insight into the linguistic
retention of immigrants, and second and third generation Americans, by
providing data of the languages spoken by them and their respective
proficiency level. The tables in the appendix visualize the responses of
these 130 respondents. !
! Out of the 130 surveys collected, with the help of Structured Query
Language (SQL), we were able to easily narrow our data down to just
people born in the United States with immigrant parents. The following
code was used to carry out the process: !
("BIRTH_COUNTRY" = ‘United States’) AND ("FATHER_BIRTH_COUNTRY"
!= ‘United States’) AND ("MOTHER_BIRTH_COUNTRY" != ‘United States’)

! This gave us a target dataset of 55 respondents; focusing only on

first generation Americans with immigrant parents. With a narrower
dataset it was easier to analyze the records in a way that would help us
examine what our study focused on. We visualized these data through
tables, charts, and figures in order to get a sense of the results. These
are shown below: !
!
!
!
!
!
!

7
Language Acquisition and Retention in First-Generation Americans

!
8
Language Acquisition and Retention in First-Generation Americans

College students from our sample population. !

Figure 1: This chart presents the total number of languages spoken by Hunter
College students from our sample population.


! !

! Source: (Hunter College Students, 2014)!

!
Figure 2: This chart shows the age of the students that were surveyed at Hunter College from the
sample population.

Source: Hunter College Students, 2014!

9
Language Acquisition and Retention in First-Generation Americans

Figure 3: This chart shows the most spoken languages in the households of the Hunter College
students from the sample population.

Source: Hunter College Students, 2014!

!
!
!
!
Analysis & Discussion!! ! ! !
!
! Table 1 presents the 55 undergraduate Hunter College students between the
ages of 18-25 that make up our final dataset. These students are born and raised in the
United States, and have immigrant parents; thus making them first generation
Americans. For each student the table provides age, birth country, country where they
were raised, father’s birth country, mother’s birth country, language spoken at home the
most, and all languages spoken. A more extensive version of the table (table 2)
including all the data collected from the surveys (such as level of proficiency in every
language, and how each language was acquired) is available in the appendix. This table
served the purpose of organizing our data in a way that would make it easier to use
when designing our charts and figures (which were the sources actually used to draw
our conclusions). !

10
Language Acquisition and Retention in First-Generation Americans

! Figure 1 shows the summary statistics of the total number of languages spoken
by Hunter College students of the target dataset that consists of fifty-five students. The
information indicates that majority of first generation Americans are fluent in at least two
languages, being two languages the most common number of languages spoken. The
proportion of students from our target dataset who speak two languages is 56.36%,
29.09% speak 3 languages, 12.72% speak 4 languages, and only a shocking 1.81%
reported speaking only one language fluently. Furthermore, the data indicate that
98.18% of first generation Americans from our dataset (54 out of 55) retained their
parents’ native language with a fluent level of proficiency in addition to acquiring English
at a fluent level of proficiency as well. !
! Figure 2 shows the summary statistics for the ages of the Hunter College
students in our dataset. The information in this table indicates the most common age
amongst our target population is 20 years old, making up one quarter of our dataset.
This age is followed by the ages of 21 and 19, as we had anticipated given we focused
only on undergraduate students. We only included data of surveyees between the ages
of 18-25 because had we included data of older people (such as graduate students),
there would have been a higher probability of linguistic data being influenced by factors
such as the extra years the students had to learn other languages whether in school or
abroad, and we were looking to focus on the first two languages acquired (language
acquired at home and language acquired outside of home, with fluent levels of
proficiency). !
! Figure 3 shows the summary statistics for the most spoken languages in the
households of Hunter College students in our dataset. The information in the pie chart
shows there are two predominant languages: Chinese; spoken in the households of
32% of our target population, and Spanish; spoken in the households of 24% of our
target population. This data makes sense given our sample population was from Hunter
College, and the demographics of the school show a high percentage of Asians and
Hispanics. The next two predominant languages are: Russian; spoken in the
households of 15% of our target population, and Polish; spoken in the households of
8% of our target population. These four languages make up 79% of our dataset. We
decided to combine all other languages listed as being the most spoken at home by our
dataset, given each language made up such a low percentage. As the figure shows, all
the combined languages make up 19% of our dataset. However, the most important
information figure 3 presents is actually the incredibly low percentage of households
that mainly speak English. Only 2% of households with immigrant parents and American
born children reported English being the most spoken language at home. This supports
our previously stated hypothesis that a majority of these first generation Americans
come from households in which the main language spoken is the native language of the

11
Language Acquisition and Retention in First-Generation Americans

immigrant parents and not English. This occurs because immigrants are most likely to
speak at home the language they are most comfortable using, which in most cases is
their native language. Thus, causing their American-born children to acquire their native
language as a first language, as opposed to English even though it is the language of
their country of birth. The frequent practice of these native languages at home is also
the factor most likely to allow first generation Americans to retain their parents’ native
language at a high level of proficiency.!
! Through our interviews we came across patterns amongst three of the eight
additional questions asked. First, we noticed patterns in the answers received for the
questions “Do you speak different languages with different members of your family? If
yes, which and with who?” The responses showed that all respondents with siblings
who were first generation Americans as themselves, spoke with them in English, while
they spoke with their parents in their native language. Second, we found a pattern in the
answers for the question “Are there any languages spoken in your family that you don’t
speak?” For which most of our interviewees responded there are no additional
languages spoken in their family besides English and their parents’ native language.
Finally, and perhaps the most interesting of all, we found a very common pattern among
the responses for the question “Which of the languages you know was the hardest/
easiest to learn?” For which majority of our respondents stated their immigrant parents’
native language was easier to learn than English. Curious as to why people born in the
United States, who have spoken English at school their whole life, who established
most personal relationships in English, who use the English language at workplaces,
and practice it on a daily basis would find it easier to acquire a higher level of
proficiency in their parents’ native language, we inquired deeper into the reasons that
drove them to that response. We found our respondents determine the level of difficulty
of a language based on when the language was learned, rather than on actual factors of
difficulty (such as non-phonetic spelling, different alphabet, pronunciation/accent, etc.).
In other words, our respondents found their parents’ native language “easier” because it
was the first language they learned (having learned it at home). And after having
learned that language, they came across some difficulties when trying to acquire a
second language (English) at the same level of proficiency; regardless of the fact that
English is the language of their country of birth, and the language they speak the most
in their everyday lives.!
!

12
Language Acquisition and Retention in First-Generation Americans

Map 1: Source Country of immigrant parents in the United States.

Source: Hunter College Students, 2014. !

!
! Our final results were presented on a map. Map 1 in this report represents the
source country of immigrant parents who live in the United States. The map turned out
to be very informative. The data was compiled from our source at Hunter College by
students and integrated using GIS software. The two predominant languages came
mostly from two countries: Mexico and China as shown in the map above. The three
main clusters of dots in Eastern Europe, Asia and Central America have been magnified
for visibility. The map gives a global perspective on the source country of these
respondents and made us realize how diverse Hunter College students really are.
Languages from every continent other than Australia and Antarctica are spoken by the
students. Thus, contrary to what we had previously anticipated, the data collected
proves that the source country does not have an effect on the likelihood of immigrant
parents to pass down their native language to their first generation American children.!

13
Language Acquisition and Retention in First-Generation Americans

Conclusion! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
!
! Looking back at our original research question “How likely are first generation
Americans to retain their parents’ native language?” we can say we were successful in
finding that American-born children of immigrant parents are very likely to retain their
parents’ native language regardless of their parents’ source country. According to
Rambaut et al., first generation Americans who retain their native language are linguistic
survivals because they have the ability to speak their native language with a high level
of proficiency. Our research also concludes that American born children to immigrant
parents are most likely to be fluent in two languages, given besides their native
language acquired at home, most additionally acquire the language of their country of
birth at a high level of proficiency.!
! Given only five weeks to propose a research question, gather data, analyze and
conclude our findings, the analysis was limited by several factors; the most crucial being
time. With the time being given and the target group we focused on, we were able to get
data for at least one country on every continent except for Australia and Antarctica. With
more time, the results would’ve been more accurate if we gathered data on the
countries we didn’t have information on in order to expand our results and have a better
explanation for our study. Also, with more time it would have been interesting to look
into the language proficiency data that was collected and connect them to the source
country to see if there was a correlation between the two. Given these limitations, it is
remarkable that the reported results were found. It is clear that U.S born children are
most likely to retain their parents native language and to be fluent in at least two
languages.!
! Whether it is to preserve their culture, because they haven’t acquired the English
language themselves, or because they feel most comfortable speaking their native
language at home, the fact stands that immigrant parents are very likely to pass down
their language to their American-born children. Thanks to this immigration experience
and background, first generation Americans are likely to be bilingual or multilingual; a
very valuable competitive advantage in our ever-growing globalized society. Future
researches in language retention, might want to look into the likelihood of this source
country language being retained in second and third generation Americans, and find the
factors and circumstances that either promote or hinder this retention. !
!
!
14
Language Acquisition and Retention in First-Generation Americans

References! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
!
Baruch Geoportal - International ESRI data. (n.d.). Retrieved December 5, 2014,

from http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/geoportal/data/esri/esri_intl.htm!

BestColleges.com. The 50 Most Diverse U.S. Colleges in 2014-2015. (2014,

January 20). Retrieved December , 2014, from http://

www.bestcolleges.com/features/most-diverse-colleges/!

Hunter College (School of Education). Students Demographic by Ethnicity - All

Boroughs. (n.d.). Retrieved December 5, 2014, from http://

www.hunter.cuny.edu/school-of-education/ncate-accreditation/electronic-

exhibit-room/standard-4/repository/files/demographics-of-nyc-public-

schools/Student Demographics by Ethnicity - All Boroughs.pdf/view!

Krashen, S. (2000, January 1). Bilingual Education, the Acquisition of English,

and the Retention and Loss of Spanish. Retrieved December 5, 2014,

from http://www.languagepolicy.net/archives/Krashen7.htm!

Krogstad, J., & Keegan, M. (2014, May 14). 15 states with the highest share of

immigrants in their population. Retrieved December 5, 2014, from


http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/05/14/15-states-with-the-

highest-share-of-immigrants-in-their-population/!

Lopez, Hugo Mark and Gonzalez- Barrera, Ana. What is the future of Spanish in

the United States? (2013, September 5). Retrieved from


http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/09/05/what-is-the-future-of-

spanish-in-the-united-states/!

15
Language Acquisition and Retention in First-Generation Americans

PewResearch Hispanics Trends Project. A Nation of Immigrants.(2013, January

23 Retrieved


from http://www.pewhispanic.org/2013/01/29/a-nation-of-immigrants/!

Portes, A., & Hao, L. (1998, March 1). E Pluribus Unum: Bilingualism and

Language Loss in the Second Generation. Retrieved December 3, 2014,

from http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp229.pdf!

Rumbaut, R., Massey, D., & Bean, F. (2006). Linguistic Life Expectancies:

Immigrant Language Retention in Southern California. (32 (3)), 447-460.

Retrieved December 6, 2014, from http://www.popcouncil.org/uploads/

pdfs/councilarticles/pdr/PDR323Rumbaut.pdf!

Semple, Kirk. (2012, June 18). In a Shift, Biggest Wave of Migrants Is Now Asian.

New York Time, p. A11. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com!

World capital cities in 2011 (wup2011-f13-capital cities). (n.d.). Retrieved

December 5, 2014, from http://geocommons.com/overlays/225940!

!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!

16
Language Acquisition and Retention in First-Generation Americans

Appendix! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
Figure 5: This chart shows the number of languages that are spoken by Hunter College Students!

Source: Hunter College Students, 2014.!

!
!
Figure 6: This chart shows the age of the students that we surveyed at Hunter College.

Source: Hunter College Students, 2014.!

17
Language Acquisition and Retention in First-Generation Americans

Figure 7: This chart shows the most languages spoken at home by Hunter College Students.

Source: Hunter College Students, 2014.!

!!
Figure 8: This chart shows the Native and the Foreign born students at Hunter College from
all our dataset

Source: Hunter College Students, 2014.!

18
Language Acquisition and Retention in First-Generation Americans

!!
!!
!!
!!
!!
!!
Map 2: This map shows the source continent of Native and the Foreign born students at
Hunter College

Source: Hunter College Students, 2014.!

!!
!!
!!
!!
!
!
19
Language Acquisition and Retention in First-Generation Americans

Table 2 Gives more details on the number of languages spoken, the level of proficiency in a
language and how it was acquired by first generation Americans!
!
!

20
Language Acquisition and Retention in First-Generation Americans

!
LANGUAGE SURVEY

This research was conducted for students in an intro to Geography class and two small
Childhood Education classes at Hunter College between the ages of 18-25!
!
1. Are you an undergraduate Hunter student? YES NO!

2. Age: _____!

3. Gender: F M!

4. Country of birth: ____________________!

5. What country were you raised in? ____________________!

6. Father’s country of birth: ____________________!

7. Mother’s country of birth: ____________________!

8. Language spoken (most spoken) at home: ____________________!

9. Please fill in the chart listing all languages INCLUDING English!

!
!
!
!
!
!
21
Language Acquisition and Retention in First-Generation Americans

Interview Questions:
!
The interview questions were composed of the survey questions and eight additional
ones that were provided to examine the impact of immigration and generation of the
language ability. The questions were the following: !
!
1) More details regarding how and why they learned the languages.
2) How old were you when you moved to the U.S?
3) What generation of your family immigrated to the U.S? What year?
4) Do you speak different languages with different members of your family?
5) If yes, which and with who?
6) Are there any languages spoken in your family that you don’t speak?
7) Are you currently learning or planning to learn an additional language in the near
future?
8) Which of the languages you know was the hardest/easiest to learn?
!
!
!
!
!
!
!

22