Learning a New Language: Spanish and English Language as Human Capital Amongst Indigenous and Non-indigenous Latinxs

• In Event: 3523 - Issues in Race/Ethnicity, Immigration, and Social Structure

Abstract

Learning the country destination language is an integral part of immigrants’ assimilation processes. Most research on immigrants’ language acquisition shows that by the third generation, immigrants eventually adopt English as their primary language. And ample research on immigrants’ language proficiency has shown that acquiring the language of the country destination leads to upward social mobility. However, with the growing diversity of the Latinx population, Spanish is also becoming an important factor towards Latinxs’ social integration and social mobility. In this research I ask, what processes and mechanisms do Latinxs of different ethnic origins use to acquire new language skills? And, how is language then converted and used as human capital in order to navigate and manage risk associated with illegality? I use fifty-seven interviews with Indigenous and non-Indigenous Latinx immigrant members of mixed-status families (those with a variety of legal status in the same family) as well as eighteen months of ethnographic participant observations with Latinxs immigrants in Kansas to answer these questions. English or Spanish language skills can lead to different paths of social integration for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Latinx immigrants. I argue that just as English is a form of human capital for new immigrants, providing avenues for social mobility and social integration, Spanish is also a form of human capital beneficial to Indigenous Latinxs’ social integration and social mobility in the U.S. Spanish language gives Indigenous-origin Latinxs access to Latinx labor niches and networks, which often dominate pertinent information on means to navigate illegality. And acquiring English skills, amongst non-Indigenous Latinxs, was also a strategy used to manage risks associated with illegality.

Author

• Andrea Gomez Cervantes, University of Kansas