Semi-Daily Journal Archive

The Blogspot archive of the weblog of J. Bradford DeLong, Professor of Economics and Chair of the PEIS major at U.C. Berkeley, a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury.

Monday, June 12, 2006

Sense on Immigration from Cowen and Rothschild

Tyler Cowen and Dan Rothschild talk sense on immigration:

Blending In, Moving Up: By Tyler Cowen and Daniel M. Rothschild: Beneath the surface of the immigration debate is a debate about shared values. If we look at just three of those values -- the English language, family and hard work -- we see a higher level of Latino assimilation than is often presumed. Despite claims to the contrary, census data show that most Latino immigrants learn and speak English quite well. Only about 2.5 percent of American residents speak Spanish but not English. The majority of residents of Spanish-speaking households speak English "very well." Only 7 percent of the children of Latino immigrants speak Spanish as a primary language, and virtually none of their children do. Just as they did a century ago, immigrants largely come knowing little English. But they learn, and their children use it as a primary language. The United States is not becoming a bilingual nation.

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