Negotiating Languages in Immigrant Families

Negotiating Languages in ImmigrantFamiliesMaria MedvedevaThe University of Chicago

This study is about the multifaceted nature of language use inimmigrant families. Following earlier explorations of language in thesegmented assimilation framework and using adolescent and parentaldata from the 1995 wave of the Children of Immigrants LongitudinalStudy, this article examines how adolescents’ use of English with theirparents relates to their proficiency in English and ethnic languages,and their personal language preferences, as well as their parents’language proficiency and use. The findings suggested that adolescentlanguage choice in child–parent interactions reflected the family’sways to negotiate the distinct linguistic repertoires of immigrant par-ents and their children. The adolescent use of English was not neces-sarily associated with social and emotional estrangement betweengenerations. Even when adolescents generally preferred English, theywere less likely to use English in child–parent interactions if their par-ents, particularly their mothers, were less proficient in English. Onthe other hand, adolescents were more likely to speak English to theirparents if their mothers were proficient in English, regardless of whatlanguage parents used with the children. Parents who spoke to theirchildren in English likely responded to their children’s doubts abouttheir ethnic language proficiency and were linguistically and emotion-ally ready to make that transition.

INTRODUCTION

The 2005–2009 American Community Survey estimated that over55 million (or 20%) of U.S. residents 5 years and older spoke a non-English language at home; 57 percent of them were foreign-born; 20 per-cent were ages 5–17, 70 percent were 18–64, and 10 percent were 65 andover; 62 percent of all non-English speakers spoke Spanish. Over 84percent of the foreign-born and 10 percent of the native-born were non-English speakers. The numbers for the younger population were as strik-ing. According to the 2005–2006 ACS, almost 16 million U.S. children

� 2012 by the Center for Migration Studies of New York. All rights reserved.DOI: 10.1111/j.1747-7379.2012.00895.x

IMR Volume 46 Number 2 (Summer 2012):517–545 517

had at least one foreign-born parent. This group comprised over 20percent of American children from birth to 17, and over 70 percent ofthem spoke a non-English language at home. Overall, non-Englishlanguages were spoken in almost 20 percent of American households.

The collective presence of non-English speakers in American societyis obviously important. Politics of national identity, social expectationsabout ‘‘normal’’ language proficiency and use, the labor market and edu-cational systems are shaped by and also in response to this group (Schmidt,2000). As a social behavior, language remains an instrument of political,social, and economic control, and, together with race and ethnicity mark-ers, language defines and maintains boundaries of social stratification inour multiethnic society (Lippi-Green, 1997). The ideology of Englishmonolingualism and the ideology of standard – an idealized, unaccented– spoken language continue to define the context of linguistic adaptationof immigrant families in the U.S. (Wiley and Lukes, 1996).

But even the immigrant family itself has never been a realm ofexclusive ethnic language use. In 1966, Joshua Fishman described theimmigrant family as ‘‘a meeting ground for two competing languages’’and emphasized its dual function in immigrant linguistic adaptation as a‘‘bulwark of ethnicity’’ and ‘‘an agency of Americanization for immigrantparents and their children alike’’ (1966, 181). Fishman argued that thetwo roles of the immigrant family were scarcely reconcilable, making com-peting cultural influences a usual trait of immigrant daily life. Not onlywere the immigrant parents and their children living in the two culturalworlds of their host society and country of origin but they also activelynegotiated any cultural and linguistic differences and contradictionsbetween these two worlds (Burck, 2005).

It is therefore not surprising that language and the immigrant familyare closely connected in migration literature. Their relationship is explicitin the discussion of selective acculturation, commonly described as a mostfavorable adaptation trajectory for immigrant families, ‘‘involving a mix ofthe old and the new’’ (Portes and Hao, 2002, 906). Empirical evidenceshows that this pattern of acculturation is frequently, though not always,associated with fluent bilingualism among children of immigrants (Portesand Rumbaut, 2006). Children’s bilingual abilities help to maintain posi-tive child–parent relationships, which in turn help to minimize theadverse effects of precipitous assimilation. When, however, children aban-don their parents’ language and culture while the parents remain non-English monolinguals, ‘‘the stage is set for the breakdown of intrafamily

518 International Migration Review

communication and the loss of parents’ control over their children’’(Portes and Rumbaut, 2006, 267).

Whereas the general logic of this argument is clear (though notabsolute1), the mechanisms of this relationship have been debated. Intheir influential article, Mouw and Xie (1999) examined how parental useof ethnic language with the children affected the relationship betweenchildren’s bilingual skills and math scores ⁄ GPA among first- and second-generation Asian-American eighth-graders. The authors argued thatlanguage use at home was a better indicator of how effectively culturalpractices were transmitted across generations. Language proficiency, onthe other hand, represented one’s latent ability. Mouw and Xie (1999)tested three hypotheses about the relationship between language andschool achievement. The cognitive hypothesis emphasized the effect ofintelligence and favorable self-selection of bilingual speakers. The culturalhypothesis underscored culturally specific ethnic socialization. The transi-tional hypothesis, proposed by the authors, centered on effectivechild-parent communication. In support of the transitional perspective,Mouw and Xie (1999) found that children’s bilingualism was beneficialcontingent upon parental difficulty with the English language:

If parents speak English well, it is inconsequential for communication purposes which lan-

guage the child speaks. The primary constraint on effective communication comes, how-

ever, if the parent is better at communicating in the native language than in English and

the child is undergoing intense English-language socialization at school and feels less com-

fortable with the native language. As the child’s English-language assimilation progresses,

there may come a time when the parent feels compelled to switch to English when speak-

ing to the child, even though the parent may continue to speak to his or her spouse in

their native language. (Mouw and Xie, 1999, 245)

This conclusion inspires a number of questions beyond the scope ofMouw and Xie’s article. What is ‘‘a level of comfort’’ with a language and

1Tseng and Fuligni (2000) examined the directionality of the relationship betweenchild-parent relationships and ethnic language use among East Asian, Filipino, and Latin

American-origin adolescents in the U.S. With longitudinal data, the authors found thatfamily relationships were a stronger predictor of language-use patterns over a 2-year periodthan vice versa. More favorable child–parent relationships were associated with either Eng-

lish or ethnic reciprocal language choices, and, in those relationships, parents were likelyto choose the language preferred by their children (Tseng and Fuligni, 2000). The authorsconcluded that the association between language use and child–parent relationships was

established prior to mid-adolescence and determined family language choices afterward.

Negotiating Languages in Immigrant Families 519

how does it relate to respective language proficiency and use? How does‘‘feeling comfortable’’ or ‘‘feeling compelled’’ shape the language use ofadolescents and their parents? Why do we expect that higher parental pro-ficiency in English will directly translate into their English language usewith the children? Does this transition assume favorable child-parent rela-tionships and ⁄ or parents’ neutral attitude toward their ethnic language?Although essential for the understanding of language change in immigrantfamilies, these questions remain understudied.

In response to Mouw and Xie’s transitional argument, Portes andHao (2002) examined the relationship between types of bilingual abilitiesof children of immigrants and measures of their sociopsychological adapta-tion. Using indices of self-reported bilingual abilities (a combined measureof understanding, speaking, reading, and writing skills) and interactionterms with parental English skills, the authors found that children fluent inboth ethnic and English languages were more likely to report lower familyconflict, higher family solidarity, higher self-esteem, and higher educationalaspirations regardless of parental English proficiency or use. Portes and Hao(2002) concluded that it was the possibility of adapting to a new societywhile also preserving cultural roots, the ability to speak ethnic languageswhile also learning English, rather than merely the ability to communicateacross generations that yielded the most desirable outcomes.

These two studies, both greatly contributing to and widely cited inmigration literature, appear to report contradictory results about the effectof parental language proficiency on family language practices and otheradaptation outcomes. It would be misleading, however, to compare thetwo studies directly. First, they examine different adaptation outcomes(school achievement and sociopsychological well-being). Second, theirrespective results could be logically expected: Mouw and Xie’s analysis ofparental language use yields results supporting the primacy of child-parentcommunication, whereas Portes and Hao’s analysis of parental languageproficiency yields results supporting the ethnic-socialization hypothesis.Although language use and proficiency are inter-related, their relationshipis far from a perfect correlation, and the two measures are unlikely substi-tutes for each other. We do generally prefer to speak languages that weknow better. However, the definition of the threshold proficiency isambiguous, language use is markedly context-bound, and both proficiencyand use might be influenced by personal language preferences, especiallyso among immigrant bilingual speakers. We can imagine immigrants flu-ent in English yet insisting on speaking their ethnic languages at home


because of their ethno-linguistic loyalties. Alternatively, we can imaginechildren of immigrants proficient in their ethnic languages yet usingmostly English because they find it easier, more concise, and more rele-vant to their everyday life. With these substantive and methodologicalconsiderations about the meaning of language use in immigrant familiesin mind, this study continues where Mouw and Xie (1999) and Portesand Hao (2002) left off.

CURRENT STUDY

Sociolinguistic research positions language use among the three inter-relatedcomponents of individual language behavior, together with language profi-ciency and language preferences (Hakuta and D’Andrea, 1992). Hakutaand Pease-Alvarez (1994, 148) define language choice2 as ‘‘an individual’schoice to use differential amounts of the languages (in different discoursesettings) given threshold proficiency in the languages.’’ Rather than being‘‘a random matter of momentary inclination,’’ language choice is com-monly described as an ‘‘an orderly social behavior’’ (Wei, 1994, 6). Becauseof its implied stability and often-assumed relationship to language profi-ciency, and because of the nature of language data collected by the U.S.Census Bureau, immigrant language choice has been studied extensively.

Past research conceptualizes language choice in child–parent interac-tions in a variety of ways: as the family’s habitual pattern of language use(Fishman, 1971; Fishman 1972), as a negotiation of the home and out-side linguistic influences (Caldas, 2006), as an enhancement of a market-able skill (Zhang, 2008), as a realization of parental commitment to thechild’s sociopsychological well-being (Portes and Hao, 2002; Harding-Esch and Riley, 2003), or as an indicator of children’s independence fromor emotional closeness to their parents (Tseng and Fuligni, 2000; Schecterand Bayley, 2002; Burck, 2005). Across ethnic groups, language choice athome is described as correlating with the shifting significance of ethnicityfor children of immigrants (Fishman, 1966; Zhou and Bankston, 1998;Portes and Rumbaut, 2001; Pease-Alvarez, 2003; Zhang, 2008).

This study contributes to the existing literature by exploring themultifaceted nature of language use within immigrant families. I use ado-lescent language choice with parents as a starting point for the analysis asI assume that the diverse language practices of children of immigrants tell

2I use terms ‘‘language choice’’ and ‘‘language use’’ interchangeably.


us more about the linguistic trajectories of their families than do the morestable and less variable language practices of their parents. The studyexamines how adolescents’ use of English with their parents relates totheir proficiency in English and ethnic languages, and their personal lan-guage preferences, as well as their parents’ language proficiency andchoice. The study also acknowledges the importance of family climate byincluding child–parent conflict, family cohesion, and familism among pos-sible confounding factors. The statistical analysis is guided by a set ofhypotheses. I hypothesize that adolescents are more likely to speak Englishto their parents if they are less proficient in their ethnic languages, gener-ally prefer English, have parents proficient in English, and if their parentsspeak to them in English most of the time.

METHOD

Sample

The purpose of this study called for the inclusion of adolescent andparental data about their respective language practices. Because interviewswith parents were conducted only in one (1995) of the three waves of theChildren of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS), the current study iscross-sectional.

The overall CILS project provides extensive information about socialand linguistic adaptation of children of immigrants and their families.The 1992 baseline sample consisted of U.S.-born children with at leastone foreign-born parent and children born abroad but brought to theU.S. at an early age. Students in the 1992 baseline sample representedover 70 ethnic groups; the largest ethnic concentrations included Cubans,Haitians, Nicaraguans, and West Indians in Southern Florida, and Mexi-cans, Filipinos, Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians in California. Thesample was evenly divided by gender, year in school (8th and 9th grade),and birth status (foreign-born ⁄ U.S.-born); 54 percent of the student inter-views were conducted in Florida (Miami ⁄ Ft. Lauderdale) and 46 percentin California (San Diego) (CILS, 2005). The 1995 follow-up – the pri-mary data for this study – included 4,288 participants.

The 1995 student data were then supplemented with data fromparental interviews conducted with 54 percent of parents randomlyselected from the 1995 CILS student sample. Unlike student surveys,mostly conducted at school via self-administered questionnaires in Eng-


lish, parental face-to-face interviews were conducted in six differentforeign languages and mostly at home (Portes and Rumbaut, 2001). Anadditional analysis indicated that none of the sociolinguistic variables ofinterest had a significant effect on the probability of parents to be selectedfor a parental interview; that probability was positively associated with thefamily’s intact status, foreign nativity of both parents, lower child–parentconflict, and greater family cohesion. National origin and gender of theadolescent participants also affected that probability.

To ensure that student participants had at least a hypothetical proba-bility to learn and use their ethnic language at home, the sample was fur-ther restricted to those adolescents who reported in 1995 that they andother people living in their household spoke the same ethnic language. Ofthe combined adolescent–parent sample, 91 percent (n = 2,102) met thatcondition. The final sample size for the analysis was 1,662.

Among 1,662 adolescent participants, 58 percent reported LatinAmerican and Caribbean national origin, 41 percent reported Asiannational origin, and one percent reported ‘‘Other’’ national origin. Theaverage age was 18 years; 50 percent were women; 44 percent werenative-born, almost 46 percent came to U.S. before turning 10, andanother 10 percent arrived between ages 10 and 16. About 94 percent ofadolescent participants reported that both their parents were foreign-born.Almost 72 percent of the participants lived in intact families with both oftheir biological or adoptive parents, 83 percent had at least one sibling intheir household, and 15 percent had at least one grandparent in theirhousehold. The average score on the child–parent conflict scale rangingfrom 1 to 4 was 1.7 with a standard deviation of 0.63. The average scoreon the family cohesion scale ranging from 1 to 5 was 3.6 with a standarddeviation of 0.97. The average score on the familism scale ranging from 1to 4 was 1.9 with a standard deviation of 0.63.

Virtually all parental interviews were conducted with participants’parents – mothers (59%) or fathers (39%) – whereas the rest of the inter-viewees were stepparents, grandparents, uncles, or aunts (2%). Parentaleducation followed bimodal distribution: According to parental interviews,many parents had less than a high school education (39% of mothers and42% of fathers), fewer were high school graduates (18% of mothers and17% of fathers), many parents had some post-secondary education but hadnot completed college (29% of mothers and 23% of fathers), and fewerhad a college degree or higher (15% of mothers and 18% of fathers). In1995, 48 percent of mothers and 54 percent of fathers were employed full


time; 25 percent of the parents reported family income below $15,000, 40percent between $15,000 and $34,999, 29 percent between $35,000 and$74,999, and 6 percent reported family income of $75,000 or above.

Measures

Language Choice in Child–parent Interactions. Table 1 lists the descriptionsand descriptive statistics for variables included in the analysis. Adolescents’language choice with parents was measured using the open-ended question:‘‘When you talk to your parents (or guardians), what language do you mostoften use?’’ Parental language choice with children was measured with thequestion: ‘‘In what language do you mostly speak to your child?’’ Amongadolescent participants, 28.7 percent reported English, 66.8 percentreported an ethnic language, and 4.6 percent reported bilingual choice.Among parents, 9.7 percent reported English, 83 percent reported an eth-nic language, and 7.2 percent reported bilingual choice. Because this studyexamines English choice compared with an ethnic or bilingual choice, thelanguage choice variable was coded as a dichotomous variable equal to 1for ‘‘English choice’’ and 0 for ‘‘Ethnic’’ or ‘‘Both about the same.’’

It is important to emphasize that parents and adolescents reportedtheir language choices in child–parent interactions independently fromeach other. Their answers, therefore, reflected only their subjective percep-tions of which language they themselves usually used with their children orparents, respectively. Adolescent participants were not asked about theirparents’ language choices, and the parents were not asked about their chil-dren’s language choices in child–parent interactions. This approachreduces the likelihood of misrepresentations of language choices in child-parent interactions, though it does not remove the subjectivity of self-assessment. This measure of language choices should not be confused withthe measure of language choice based on the researcher’s direct observa-tion of actual linguistic interactions, usual in linguistic research.

Language Preference. Adolescent language preference was measured usingone question: ‘‘What language do YOU prefer to speak most of thetime?’’ The question was open-ended: 68 percent preferred English, 16.5percent reported some combination of English and ethnic languages, and15.5 percent reported an ethnic language. Because this study is concernedwith English preference, the language preference data were coded as adichotomous variable equal to 1 for ‘‘English preference’’ and 0 for


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‘‘Ethnic’’ or ‘‘Both about the same.’’ Parents were not asked about theirlanguage preference.

Language Proficiency. Adolescent and parental proficiencies in Englishwere measured with the question: ‘‘How well do you speak English?’’Parental proficiency in English was recoded as a set of four dichotomousvariables: ‘‘Not speaking English,’’ ‘‘Speaking English very little,’’ ‘‘Speak-ing English well,’’ and ‘‘Speaking English very well.’’ More than 75 per-cent of adolescents reported speaking English ‘‘very well,’’ and another24 percent reported speaking it ‘‘well’’; therefore, adolescents’ English profi-ciency was coded 1 for ‘‘Speaking English very well,’’ and 0 otherwise.

Parents were not asked about proficiency in their ethnic language.Adolescents’ proficiency in their ethnic language was measured with thequestion: ‘‘How well do you speak a language other than English?’’ It wasrecoded as a set of four dichotomous variables: ‘‘Speaking an ethnic lan-guage very little,’’ ‘‘Speaking an ethnic language not well,’’ ‘‘Speaking anethnic language well,’’ and ‘‘Speaking an ethnic language very well.’’

Self-reported language proficiency can be interpreted both as anobjective measure of linguistic competence and as a level of personalcomfort in a given language influenced by the social context of languageuse, individual attitudes to that language and its speakers (Hakuta andD’Andrea, 1992), and to individual bilingualism more generally (Fishmanand Terry, 1969). For example, in the case of CILS parental interviews,the social and linguistic context of the interviews and the characteristicsof the interviewers could shape how immigrant parents evaluated theirproficiency in English and how they described their language use withthe children. Research frequently emphasizes the former—objective—interpretation of self-reported language proficiency and overlooks its sec-ond meaning. I utilize the dual meaning of self-reported languageproficiency for the interpretation of the study results.

Single-parent Families. To keep cases of adolescents from single-parentfamilies in the sample, which otherwise would be left out because of miss-ing data on their second parent’s language proficiency, education, andemployment, I recoded these missing data to modal categories for each var-iable and created two additional dichotomous variables: ‘‘Mother presentin a household’’ and ‘‘Father present in a household.’’ All models reportedin this study include interaction terms for mother’s or father’s presence in ahousehold with mother’s or father’s proficiency in English, education and


employment status, respectively. That means that the effect of, for example,the father’s ability to speak English ‘‘very well’’ on adolescents’ languagechoice should be interpreted as the effect of the father’s ability to speakEnglish ‘‘very well’’ when the father is present in the household.

Control Variables

Adolescents’ Characteristics. Adolescents’ age of arrival to the U.S. wasmeasured as a difference between year of birth and year of immigration tothe U.S. Age of arrival was coded 0 for U.S.-born adolescents. Genderwas coded 1 for women and 0 for men. Adolescents’ national origin wasa set of seven dichotomous variables including Asia, Caribbean, Cuba,Mexico, Other Latin America, Other (Canada, Europe, Middle East,Africa), and Philippines.

Family Characteristics. Adolescent interviews were a source of data onintact family, parental nativity, presence of grandparents and siblings in ahousehold, and family climate. An intact family was coded 1 when theparticipant lived in a household with both of biological or adoptive par-ents present. Parental nativity was coded as a dichotomous variable equalto 1 when both parents were foreign-born and 0 when one of the parentswas U.S.-born. The presence of grandparents was coded as a dichotomousvariable equal to 1 when at least one grandparent was present in thehousehold. The presence of siblings was coded as a dichotomous variableequal to 1 when at least one sibling was present in the same household.

The study uses three characteristics of family climate: child–parentconflict, familism, and family cohesion.3 Following Rumbaut (1994), thechild–parent conflict was a composite scale including three items eachscored 1 (minimum) to 4 (maximum): Item 1 ‘‘In trouble with parentsbecause of different way of doing things’’; Item 2 ‘‘My parents are usuallynot very interested in what I have to say’’; Item 3 ‘‘My parents do notlike me very much.’’ Cronbach’s alpha for this scale was 0.6.4 Familism

3There was no statistically significant association between familism and child–parentconflict, and there was a weak statistically significant association between family cohesionand familism (r = 0.10, p<0.001). There was a moderate negative association between

child–parent conflict and family cohesion (r = )0.40, p<0.001).4The results of the factor analysis indicated the one-dimensional structure of the child–parent conflict scale. The extracted Factor 1 was highly correlated with Item 1 (r = 0.59,

p<0.001), Item 2 (r = 0.79, p<0.001), and Item 3 (r = 0.83, p<0.001).


can be described as subordination of individual interests to those of thekinship group or a greater sense of family obligations (Rogers and Sebald,1962) and a greater reliance on family network (Tienda, 1980). FollowingRumbaut (1994), the measure of familism was a composite scale withthree items scored 1 (minimum) to 4 (maximum): Item 1 ‘‘One shouldfind a job near his ⁄ her parents even if it means losing a better job some-where else’’; Item 2 ‘‘When someone has a serious problem, only relativescan help’’; Item 3 ‘‘In helping a person get a job, it is always better tochoose a relative rather than a friend.’’ Cronbach’s alpha for this scale was0.59.5 Family cohesion was a composite scale consisting of three itemseach scored 1 (minimum) to 5 (maximum): Item 1 ‘‘Family members liketo spend time with each other’’; Item 2 ‘‘Family members feel very closeto each other’’; Item 3 ‘‘Family togetherness is very important.’’ Cron-bach’s alpha for this scale was 0.84.

Parental interviews were a source of data on parental education,employment status, and family income. Parental education was an ordinalvariable with the following categories: 0 ‘‘No schooling,’’ 1 ‘‘Less thanhigh school graduate,’’ 2 ‘‘High school graduate,’’ 3 ‘‘More than highschool but less than college graduate,’’ 4 ‘‘College graduate or higher.’’Parental employment status was coded 1 when father or mother wasemployed full time and 0 otherwise. Total family income was an ordinalvariable with 15 categories ranging from ‘‘none’’ to ‘‘$200,000 or above.’’

RESULTS

Descriptive Analysis

The majority of the adolescent participants were bilingual with dominantEnglish language and a marked preference for English: 75 percentreported speaking English ‘‘very well,’’ 24 percent reported speaking it‘‘well’’; 68 percent preferred speaking English most of the time. Incontrast, 39 percent of adolescents reported speaking their ethnic lan-guage ‘‘very well,’’ 41 percent spoke it ‘‘well,’’ and 20 percent spoke it‘‘not well’’ or ‘‘very little.’’ The parental English language proficiencywas more evenly distributed: 22 percent of mothers and 24 percent of

5The results of the factor analysis indicated the one-dimensional structure of the familismscale. The extracted Factor 1 was highly correlated with Item 1 (r = 0.70, p<0.001), Item

2 (r = 0.82, p<0.001), and Item 3 (r = 0.71, p<0.001).


fathers reported speaking English ‘‘very well,’’ 27 percent of mothers and28 percent of fathers spoke English ‘‘well,’’ 34 percent of mothers and24 percent of fathers spoke it ‘‘not well,’’ and 14 percent of mothersand 7 percent of fathers reported speaking it ‘‘very little’’ or ‘‘not atall.’’

As predicted by migration literature, and despite variation in Englishproficiency, the vast majority of parents (90%) reported speaking theirethnic language with the children, whereas 10 percent spoke only English.There was no significant difference between mothers and fathers. Thispattern was repeated among adolescents though to a lesser extent: Despitetheir English dominance, 71 percent of adolescents reported using theirethnic languages with the parents, whereas 29 percent spoke only English.Girls were more likely to use mostly English with their parents than boys(31.3% and 25.9%, respectively). Adolescents’ language preferences alsoplayed a role: Almost 40 percent of adolescents who preferred Englishand only 6 percent of adolescents with bilingual or ethnic language prefer-ence spoke only English to their parents. It is notable that among adoles-cents who spoke English to their parents, 93.5 percent preferred English.

Figure I presents the distribution of patterns of language choice inchild-parent interactions. In 69.3 percent of 1,662 child–parent pairs,both adolescents and their parents reported speaking their ethnic languageto each other. In 7.8 percent of pairs, both adolescents and parents spokeEnglish. In 21 percent of child–parent pairs, adolescents spoke Englishand parents spoke their ethnic language – a pattern commonly used todescribe language shift in immigrant families. In 2 percent of pairs, ado-lescents spoke their ethnic language and parents spoke English.

1.9%

7.8%

21%

69.3%

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

Parent English / Child Ethnic

Parent English / Child English

Parent Ethnic / Child English

Parent Ethnic / Child Ethnic

Percent

Lang

uage

cho

ice

Figure I. Percentage Distribution of Patterns of Language Choice in Child–Parent

Interactions (N = 1,662)

Source: CILS 1995.


It is also important to compare language choice in two oppositetypes of families: monolingual families ‘‘with no choice’’ (when adoles-cents speak their ethnic language ‘‘very little’’ and their mother does notspeak English) and fluently bilingual families (when adolescents speaktheir ethnic language ‘‘very well’’ and their mothers speak English ‘‘verywell’’). There were only eight families in the former group with nochoice. Among them, in six child–parent pairs, adolescents spoke theirethnic language to the parents whereas in two pairs adolescents spoke onlyEnglish. Parents spoke their ethnic languages only. In contrast, among 89fluently bilingual families, in 51 child–parent pairs (57%), both adoles-cents and their parents spoke their ethnic language at least some of thetime, and in 36 pairs (40%), adolescents spoke only English while theirparents spoke an ethnic language. Even in this group, however, 98 percentof parents spoke their ethnic language to their children and 58 percent ofadolescents spoke their ethnic language to their parents.

Table 2 shows variation in patterns of language use in child–par-ent pairs by the adolescent’s national origin. With the exception ofPhilippines, where English is a dominant language, the majority of par-ticipants in all other national-origin groups either reported a reciprocalchoice of their ethnic languages or a non-reciprocal language choicewith adolescents speaking English and the parents speaking their ethniclanguage. Except for the ‘‘Other’’ national-origin group, a reciprocalchoice of ethnic language was a dominant pattern: The share of child-parent pairs reporting it ranged from 48 percent for Caribbean

TABLE 2PATTERNS OF LANGUAGE CHOICE IN CHILD–PARENT INTERACTIONS, BY ADOLESCENT’S NATIONAL ORIGIN

(N = 1,662)

Nationalorigin

Pattern of language choice in child–parent interactions

TOTALEthnic (P)a &

Ethnic (C) (%)Ethnic (P) &

English (C) (%)English (P) &

English (C) (%)English (P) &Ethnic (C) (%)

Cuba 66.3 33.3 0.4 – 100% (n = 291)Mexico 76.0 13.8 4.7 5.5 100% (n = 254)Other LatinAmerica

83.1 16.3 0.6 – 100% (n = 355)

Caribbean 48.5 51.5 – – 100% (n = 68)Philippines 11.2 33.5 51.2 4.2 100% (n = 215)Asia 88.2 9.00 0.9 1.90 100% (n = 466)Other 23.1 69.2 7.7 – 100% (n = 13)TOTAL 69.3 21.0 7.8 2 100% (n = 1,662)

Source: CILS 1992, 1995.Note: a(P) stands for ‘‘Parent’’ and (C) stands for ‘‘Child’’.


national origin to 88 percent for families of Asian backgrounds. Thenon-reciprocal choice with an ethnic language spoken by parents andthe English language spoken by children dominated in families ofCaribbean background (51.5%) and was reported by a third of Filipinoand Cuban families. This non-reciprocal pattern of language use wasleast prevalent in Asian families (9%). The reciprocal use of Englishwas rare, except for Filipino families where it was reported in 51 per-cent of child-parent pairs. Finally, 5.5 percent of Mexican families, 4percent of Filipino families, and 2 percent of Asian families reported anon-reciprocal pattern with parents speaking English and childrenspeaking their ethnic language.

Table 3 reports pairwise correlation coefficients for measures oflanguage proficiency, use, and preferences. The results show that adoles-cents were more likely to speak English to their parents when their moth-ers were proficient in English (r = 0.48, p<0.05); when adolescents lackedproficiency in their ethnic language (r = )0.46, p<0.05); when they gener-ally preferred English (r = 0.35, p<0.05); when their fathers were profi-cient in English (r = 0.28, p<0.05); when adolescents themselves wereproficient in English (r = 0.23, p<0.05). The data show no statistically sig-nificant association between adolescents’ English and ethnic languageproficiency.

Parents, on the other hand, were more likely to speak English totheir children when the children lacked proficiency in their ethniclanguage (r = )0.39, p<0.05); when the children spoke English to theirparents (r = 0.37, p<0.001); when the mothers were proficient in English(r = 0.24, p<0.05); when the fathers were proficient in English (r = 0.22,p<0.05). Additional analysis not presented here showed that among parentswho spoke English to their children, 88 percent of mothers and 95 percent

TABLE 3PAIRWISE CORRELATION COEFFICIENTS FOR SELECTED INDEPENDENT VARIABLES (N = 1,662)

Variable name 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1 Adolescent speaks English to parents 1.002 Adolescent prefers English 0.35* 1.003 Adolescent speaks English ‘‘very well’’ 0.23* 0.35* 1.004 Adolescent’s ethnic language proficiency )0.46* )0.30* )0.05 1.005 Parents speak English to adolescent 0.37* 0.15* 0.11* )0.39* 1.006 Mother’s proficiency in English (P)a 0.48* 0.27* 0.31* )0.25* 0.24* 1.007 Father’s proficiency in English (P) 0.28* 0.13* 0.17* )0.17* 0.22* 0.32* 1.00

Source: CILS 1995.Notes: *p<0.05.

a‘‘P’’ indicates data from interviews with respondents’ parents or guardians.


of fathers spoke English ‘‘well’’ or ‘‘very well,’’ and almost three quartersof them had at least some post-secondary education. Finally, parents’use of English with adolescents was only weakly associated with adoles-cents’ English proficiency (r = 0.11, p<0.05).

Probit Analysis

Table 4 presents four models describing the relationship between parentaland adolescent language proficiency and language use in child–parentinteractions. I discuss these models in the order shown in the table. Theresults in Model 1 point to the importance of adolescent language prefer-ences. Controlling for participants’ individual and family characteristicsand national origin, adolescents were more likely to speak English to theirparents if they generally preferred speaking English (r = 0.952, p<0.001in Model 1). The impact of adolescents’ English preference remainedstrong and significant in all Models in Table 4.

Model 2 adds parental language choice and shows that controllingfor their language preference, adolescents were more likely to speakEnglish to their parents if the parents spoke English to them (r = 0.547,p<0.05 in Model 2). The effect of parental language choice decreased afteradding parental English proficiency in Model 3, but remained statisticallysignificant (r = 0.413, p<0.05 in Model 3). This reduction was likely dueto the correlation between parental English use and English proficiency:Parents who spoke English to their children were more comfortable withEnglish to begin with. The inclusion of adolescents’ language proficiencyin Model 4 reduced the effect of parental language choice to statisticallynon-significant. Parental use of English with children, therefore, likelyreflected a complex interplay between parental readiness and the adolescents’need to switch to English as a medium of child–parent communication.

Parental readiness to use English with children is depicted in Model 3.The results show that, in particular, mothers’ proficiency in English had astrong influence on which language adolescents would use with their parentsmost of the time. Adolescents whose mothers spoke English less than ‘‘verywell’’ were significantly less likely to use English with the parents(r = )1.010, p<0.001 for speaking English ‘‘very little,’’ r = )1.031,p<0.001 for speaking English ‘‘not well,’’ and r = )0.585, p<0.001 forspeaking English ‘‘well’’ in Model 3). The absolute effect of mothers’ Englishproficiency increased slightly after adding adolescents’ language proficiencyin Model 4, indicating that adolescents, with similar self-reported language


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proficiency and preferences, were less likely to use English with their parentsif their mothers were not comfortable speaking the English language.

The effect of paternal English proficiency on adolescents’ Englishchoice was weaker than the effect of maternal English proficiency. Adoles-cents whose fathers reported speaking English less than ‘‘well’’ were less likelyto use English in child–parent interactions compared with families withfathers speaking English ‘‘very well’’ (r = )0.251, p<0.05 for fathers speakingEnglish ‘‘well’’ in Model 3). The effect of fathers’ English proficiency becamenon-significant after adding adolescent language proficiency in Model 4.

Indeed, adolescents’ proficiency in their ethnic languages had a markedimpact on adolescents’ language choice with the parents. Adolescents speak-ing their ethnic languages less than ‘‘very well’’ were significantly more likelyto use English with their parents (r = 1.492, p<0.001 for speaking ethniclanguage ‘‘very little,’’ r = 0.912, p<0.001 for speaking it ‘‘not well,’’ andr = 0.560, p<0.001 for speaking it ‘‘well’’ in Model 4) compared with ado-lescents speaking their ethnic languages ‘‘very well.’’ At the same time,because of the widespread English fluency among adolescent participants,the effect of speaking English ‘‘very well’’ was not statistically significant. Inother words, adolescents comfortable with their ethnic language were signifi-cantly less likely than their less-proficient counterparts to use English withtheir parents, controlling for adolescent language preference, English lan-guage proficiency, and for parental English proficiency and language choice.

The analysis also found that controlling for language proficiency andpreferences, female gender and length of residence in the U.S. had a posi-tive effect on the probability that adolescents would speak English to theirparents. Higher family income and parental education were also associatedwith a greater use of English. On the other hand, adolescents with twoforeign-born parents were more likely to speak their ethnic languages totheir parents. The relationship between family climate (child–parent con-flict, family cohesion, and familism) and adolescent use of English withtheir parents was not statistically significant.

DISCUSSION

Migration literature conceptualizes language choice in child–parentinteractions as an important cause and effect of adaptation experiences ofchildren of immigrants and their parents; the constituting elements of thischoice, however, have been less understood. Building on the questionsinspired by Mouw and Xie (1999) and Portes and Hao (2002), this study


explored and illustrated the multifaceted nature of language use in immi-grant families. This section reviews the findings and their implications,and, with the help of previous research, examines possible experiencesassociated with the observed relationships.

Overview

A reciprocal use of an ethnic language was the dominant pattern oflanguage choice in child–parent interactions in immigrant families, evenamong adolescents who otherwise preferred English. It was followed by anon-reciprocal pattern, with parents speaking their ethnic languages andadolescents speaking English. The prevalence of different patterns oflanguage use in immigrant families varied across national-origin groups.

Controlling for adolescents’ individual and family characteristics,including family climate and national origin, adolescents’ proficiency intheir ethnic language was the strongest predictor of their language choicein child–parent interactions, followed by maternal proficiency in Englishand adolescents’ English preference; the effect of the father’s Englishproficiency was weak. Whether adolescents would speak English to theirparents depended on how comfortable they felt in their ethnic language,whether their mothers felt comfortable in English, and whether theygenerally preferred English. Contrary to my fourth hypothesis, parentaluse of English had no effect on adolescents’ language choice with par-ents, when language proficiencies were accounted for.

The influence of adolescents’ ethnic-language proficiency is notsurprising: On average, the more adolescents doubted their ethnic-languageproficiency the more likely they were to speak English to their parents.The role of mothers’ proficiency in this choice, however, merits additionalconsideration. As suggested by Portes and Hao (2002), the influence ofmaternal English proficiency on adolescent language use at home was notnecessarily direct. Even if the mother’s proficiency in English could trans-late into the parental use of English with children, as implied in Mouw andXie’s (1999) article, parental use of English had only minor consequencesfor which language adolescents would speak to their parents. Rather, whenadolescents spoke English to their parents, they still wanted to be under-stood. It was, therefore, the mother’s proficiency in English rather than theactual use of English that made the difference – in part because the vastmajority of immigrant parents habitually spoke their ethnic language athome even when their English improved.


The findings suggest that the role of mothers’ proficiency in Englishis strong and persistent, even if indirect. Higher proficiency opens analternative line of communication for the children, and because the ado-lescents own and feel invested in both of their languages, they may find itespecially difficult to restrict the use of English at home. On the otherhand, mother’s lower proficiency motivates adolescents to speak theirethnic languages in order to be understood and stay in touch with theirfamily. Indeed Zhou and Bankston (1998, 113) considered the parents’weak English proficiency among the three main factors of ethniclanguages maintenance among children of Asian origin, together withcontinuing high rates of immigration from Asia and living in an areainhabited by co-ethnics.

I conclude, therefore, that the adolescent use of English in child–parent interactions reflected the family’s ways to negotiate the distinct lin-guistic repertoires of immigrant parents and their children and did notnecessarily reflect social and emotional estrangement between children ofimmigrants and their foreign-born parents. Adolescents were likely torespond to their parents’ need and speak an ethnic language if the parents,particularly the mother, were obviously less proficient or less comfortablein English. Parents who used English with their children likely respondedto their children’s need to speak English as a primary medium of commu-nication and were linguistically (and emotionally) ready to make thattransition. Parents giving in to their children’s linguistic needs and prefer-ences, accepting and following those needs and preferences, is arguablythe central mechanism of this transition.

The view of language choice in immigrant family as a negotiationquestions the notion of bilingual proficiency as a set of fixed linguisticskills, measured against the monolingual standards of the two languages.Rather, language proficiency presents a continuum of linguistic and cul-tural repertoires, which bilingual speakers use to make sense of their bilin-gual worlds. Garcia (2009) developed a concept of ‘‘translanguaging’’ todescribe these language practices of people speaking more than one lan-guage. One of the most visible examples of translanguaging is languagebrokering, especially when children of immigrants translate from Englishfor their less-proficient parents, or when parents assist their children in anethnic-language environment. As a cultural practice, Orellana (2009)writes, language brokering brings speakers of different languages, and theircultural worlds, in direct contact. For example, the child translator recog-nizes and also crosses ethnic, class, and generational boundaries, and


negotiates power relations embedded in those boundaries. By doing theemotional, inter-generational, and inter-cultural work of translation fortheir parents, children open lines of communication and make it possiblefor themselves, their families, and others (doctors, teachers, insurance andpublic service professionals) to do things that they would not be able todo otherwise (Orellana, 2009). Language practices of children of immi-grants and their parents, therefore, not only negotiate linguistic repertoiresof the family members, but also attempt to reconcile any differences anddiscrepancies between the two cultural worlds of their host society andcountry of origin. The literature offers several accounts of these experi-ences.

How Adolescents Shift to English

Commonly, adolescents’ increased use of English language with theirparents is described as a spillover effect from their growing use of Englishat school, when alone, or with their siblings (Fishman, 1966; Hakuta andPease-Alvarez, 1994). In that case, the shift toward English as the habituallanguage of the family is gradual.

There are, however, important exceptions from this usual trajectory.Recently immigrated children may resort to English-only as a result oftheir dramatic experiences at their mainstream schools. Zhang (2008) doc-umented several stories of children whose initially lower English profi-ciency resulted in considerable emotional and academic stress. Once thosechildren learned some English, they actively refused to speak Chinese as away to distance themselves from their past unhelpful experiences. Thisrefusal resulted in the decreased use of and growing discomfort with Chi-nese, which further reinforced their disinclination to speak Chinese athome.

A shift in adolescents’ language choice may be triggered not only bytheir personal experiences associated with the demands of English, butalso by the lower English proficiency of their parents. Although moreoften than not lower parental proficiency in English motivates ethnic lan-guage maintenance among children of immigrants, Burck (2005) reportedthe stories of children feeling embarrassed by their parents’ English lan-guage difficulties even after many years in their host country; those chil-dren spoke English to distance themselves from their parents. Burckemphasized that children’s lack of confidence in their immigrant parents,and the parents’ own uncertainty in the new language and culture, tended


to disrupt the usual balance of authority in child–parent relationships.She wrote: ‘‘a parent could be profoundly responsive to and organized bytheir children’s contempt’’ (Burck, 2005, 126), echoing the ‘‘Who issocializing whom in the immigrant family?’’ question raised and carefullyexplored in the ethnographic study of child translators in Mexican familiesin Orellana’s Translating Childhoods (2009) and in Schecter and Bayley’s(2002) finely crafted account of language socialization in Language asCultural Practice.

Why Parents Give In

It is not surprising, then, that adolescents are not the only ones in their fam-ilies who become ambivalent about ethnic language practices. Their parents,and particularly mothers of pre- to mid-adolescents, are confronted withconflicting aspirations. According to Okita (2002) and Burck (2005), whilemothers described speaking their ethnic languages to their young children as‘‘natural,’’ the ethnic language maintenance with adolescents required con-siderably greater commitment and ongoing attention. It became conceptual-ized as ‘‘language as work’’ and was perceived by mothers as putting unduepressure on their children and on family relationships generally (Okita,2002; Caldas, 2006). When adolescents insisted, many parents eventuallygave in to their children’s linguistic preferences and needs, hoping to reducethe unnecessary tension in already-challenging relationships (Okita, 2002;Pease-Alvarez, 2003; Caldas, 2006). Snow and Hakuta (1992, 388) wrote:

Consider the case of the perfectly bilingual Mexican American whose children start to speak

English among themselves and eventually to their parents. The adults can stubbornly go on

speaking Spanish, which their children understand, to maintain the children’s proficiency

in Spanish. But conversations where one partner speaks Spanish and the other speaks Eng-

lish are hard to keep going for long, as the convergence principle predicts. Not surprisingly,

the parents typically give in, with the result that the children end up monolingual English

speakers. Such parents can talk about the conflict – they would like their children to speak

Spanish – but they do not want to sacrifice the familial intimacy, the freedom from con-

flict, and the convenience associated with acceding to their children’s preferences.

The transformation and reconsideration of child-parent relationshipsduring the child’s adolescence inevitably transform the role of Englishand ethnic languages at home, and could be shaped by a number of addi-tional circumstances. Pease-Alvarez (2003) observed that the use of Eng-lish in child–parent interactions in Mexican origin families increased


significantly over time in the U.S. In some families, this shift could be acontinuation of occasional slips to English in daily conversations (Goodz,1989). In others, parents shifted to the dominant language to establishdistance from sad memories of their own childhood (Burck, 2005). Moreoften than not, however, mothers attributed this shift to an increasedfinancial pressure to work outside of the home and having little remainingtime to help children learn and speak Spanish (Schecter and Bayley,2002). Pease-Alvarez (2003) also found that parents held lower expecta-tions for their children’s Spanish proficiency compared with English, notonly because of their recognition of the importance of the English lan-guage in the U.S., but also because of their feeling of insecurity about the‘‘correctness’’ and ‘‘purity’’ of their own ethnic language proficiency – arationale also repeatedly used in Chinese families in England (Burck,2005).

Language change in immigrant families tells the story of immigrantadaptation and language socialization of children of immigrants and theirparents alike. It cannot be separated from family relationships and abroader social context – not because languages are imposed on eitheradolescents or their parents – but because language change at home isattuned to subtle shifts in actual and perceived language needs of familymembers as much as it reflects their global migration and adaptationexperiences. This is exactly what makes immigrant linguistic adaptationespecially relevant to migration scholars.

STUDY LIMITATIONS

Several limitations of this study need to be acknowledged. First, the studyrelies on cross-sectional analysis. Future research would benefit from usinglongitudinal data that would allow investigating how the actual process oflanguage change happens in immigrant families and how family membersrespond to that change. Longitudinal data will provide a better founda-tion for the study of language choice as a negotiation not only betweenchildren of immigrants and their foreign-born parents, but also betweenthe two cultural worlds of the host society and country of origin. Second,the study focuses on middle adolescence. Past research and findings fromthe current study suggest that family linguistic context and adolescent lan-guage choice are likely to be established prior to middle adolescence. It is,therefore, crucial to study linguistic adaptation of children of immigrantsduring their childhood, pre- and earlier adolescence and track changes


over time. Finally, future research would benefit from analyzing parentallanguage choice and parental language preference as two distinct aspectsof language change in immigrant families.

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Negotiating Languages in Immigrant Families

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