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Language and ethnicity are assuredly intertwined with immigration, but there is not an agreement about language ability and bilingualism influence achievement in school.

Immigrants under age forty English-language proficiency will improve over time and according to the 2000 Census: years in the United States, years of education, and attending school in the United States are all associated with English-language proficiency.

Parents who are not confident speaking English may be less willing to engage in contact with schools and less able to help their children navigate through school.  Disadvantages associated with the child’s limited English skills may be associated with lower academic achievements and be placed in lower grades.

Despite the apparent disadvantages of a non English background, other research suggests that there is a positive, effect of coming from a bilingual background. Bilingualism may allow immigrants and second generation children to tap into the resources available in their parents’ community as well as participate in regular school activities. According to different studies a bilingual home may provide access to greater social capital. Parents who speak both English and their native language are better able to help their children by maintaining ties with the immigrant community as they interact with other social institutions such as schools.

According to Douglas D. Heckathorn from Cornell University the answers to: How many second-generation children are not fluent in English? Which ones have earned college degrees? Why have members of the second generation chosen certain types of occupations and not others? are not only interesting to researchers but also relevant for policymakers. In order to study the US-born children of immigrants, commonly called the second generation, researchers need both demographic information and qualitative information that can only be learned through surveys and interviews.

Also according to an article by N.C. Aizenman, Washington Post Staff Writer “Supporters of Latino immigrants say that the newcomers and their children have spurred economic growth and contribute far more to society than they take from it. They also note that even a complete halt to future immigration would not change the footprint of the 15.2 million U.S.-born offspring of Hispanic immigrants already in the country.”

“Perhaps the only yardstick by which the second generation has achieved unambiguous success is the one that has stirred the most public controversy: English proficiency.” “Despite fears among some people that English usage is diminishing in the Hispanics community, census data and several studies indicate that by the second generation, nearly all Latinos are fluent in English and that by the third generation, many can’t even speak Spanish.”

“The second generation’s lack of success on educational and economic fronts is largely explained by their immigrant parents’ extremely low starting point. Forty percent of second-generation Hispanic children are born to parents who never completed high school. Only 12 percent have a parent with a college degree or higher.”

“Although adding on a year or two of education beyond high school can boost their incomes, to be truly guaranteed a middle-class lifestyle, second-generation Latinos need at least a bachelor’s degree — a feat that the last major wave of immigrants, from Eastern and Southern Europe, took three or four generations to achieve.”

We Latinos have an opportunity to make a difference in this country and the only way to do it is getting a better education for ourselves and to our children, it does not matter if you came from a low income family or middle class. Is up to us to achieve success and provide a better life to our future generation and to contribute to the economy of this country; we can be firefighters, policemen, mechanics, nurses, teachers, lawyers, doctors as well policy makers. I encourage those who already achieved success to help others in need of improvement through seminars, reaching out to your local community and be a board member of a non profit organization that helps improve the quality of life through education, member of a chamber of commerce, and participating in your local government helping write new laws that will benefit the Hispanic community among other things.

This article is base in part from the book “Achieving Anew” by Michael J. White and Jennifer E. Glick

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