Language Assimilation Today: Bilingualism Persists More Than in the Past, But English Still Dominates, Report by Richard Alba
December 2004 > Download PDF
Because of renewed immigration, fears about the status of English as the linguistic glue holding America together are common today.  In a very different vein, multiculturalists have expressed hopes of profound change to American culture brought on by the persistence across generations of the mother tongues of contemporary immigrants.  In either case, the underlying claim is that the past pattern of rapid acceptance of English by the children and grandchildren of the immigrants may be breaking down.