Comprehensive Immigration Reform: Becoming Americans - U.S. Immigrant Integration
Skip to main content
eScholarship
Open Access Publications from the University of California

UC Irvine

UC Irvine Previously Published Works bannerUC Irvine

Comprehensive Immigration Reform: Becoming Americans - U.S. Immigrant Integration

Published Web Location

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1883911
No data is associated with this publication.
Abstract

Hearing on 'Comprehensive Immigration Reform: Becoming Americans - US Immigrant Integration,' Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Serial No. 110-27. May 16, 2007. Abstract: In this statement to a House Hearing on comprehensive immigration reform focusing on immigrant integration, English and foreign language competencies, preferences and use among immigrants and their children in the United States are examined, based on both historical and contemporary census and survey data. The findings of key studies measuring inter-generational language change are summarized, including longitudinal and cross-generational analyses. Data are then presented from research measuring the “linguistic life expectancies” of immigrant languages in Southern California, the region of main immigrant settlement in the U.S. - that is, the generational point at which an immigrant language (Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Tagalog, Vietnamese) effectively “dies” and is replaced by English language preference and use. Responses are also provided to these post-hearing questions posed by House members: “Is there such a thing as too much immigration? Legal immigration? Illegal immigration? How many immigrants are too many? Is there a limit to how many immigrants we can successfully assimilate? What are the criteria? What are the consequences if the wrong judgment is made about how many immigrants we can assimilate? How did previous generations of immigrants learn English without federal programs?”

Many UC-authored scholarly publications are freely available on this site because of the UC's open access policies. Let us know how this access is important for you.

Item not freely available? Link broken?
Report a problem accessing this item