Immigrants learning English

Miranda Wilkerson (a recent Wisconsin Ph.D. who does second language acquisition) and our contributor Joe just had a piece in American Speech showing that German-speaking immigrants to Wisconsin didn't learn English quickly, in fact even for two or three generations in many cases. It's called "'Good old immigrants of yesteryear' who didn't learn English" and appears in vol. 83, pp. 259-283. They note that scholars like Calvin Veltman show that contemporary immigrants, in contrast, are learning English as fast as they can.

The local paper has picked up the story, here. The 'community comments' section after on-line articles is pretty consistently a forum for screaming wingnuts. It's kinda of like a Palin rally in cyberspace in terms of the attitude toward the media and the racism. It's interesting in this case that a lot of people are actually speaking up showing some knowledge of family, local and state history.

Language and immigration in the courts

Kudos to Judge Richard S. Brown, a state appellate judge here in Wisconsin. The NYT last week did a long piece called:

Study Finds Gaps in Aid for Non-English Speakers in State Civil Courts

Here are the key quotes from Brown:

“If a person cannot understand what is happening in the courtroom proceeding, an unfair result might occur. And that is contradictory to what we want our courts to do: administer justice, fairly and impartially.”

“I wonder aloud how many immigrants from the 1840s through the 1920s lost their liberty, lost their property, lost their homes, their livelihood, all because they could not yet understand the English language to the fullest,” he said in an e-mail interview.

Judge Brown, who is deaf, said, “I think we are a better country because we are now acknowledging what we did not acknowledge in the 19th and early 20th centuries.”

A couple of posts on this blog have talked about recent (and apparently ongoing) work by Wilkerson & Salmons showing that German-speaking immigrants did not learn English for generations in many cases. They draw, as it happens, on evidence including Wisconsin Supreme Court decisions involving Yankees who swindled immigrants who didn't speak English. They also tell me that there are newspaper reports on court cases where Wisconsin-born citizens could not respond to simple questions in English.

So, yes, Judge Brown, the historical record bears you out. Thank you.

Accusations of misconduct: Language and immigration

A while back, Mr. Verb mentioned an article that Miranda Wilkerson and I recently had in American Speech. We show that, contrary to myth, German-speaking immigrants to 19th c. Wisconsin didn't wake up the morning after arrival as monolingual English speakers. In fact, almost a half century after really major immigration had ended in some communities, 20% or more of the community was still monolingual in German, according to the 1910 Census. In some communities, not far from half of those people were American-born. And monolinguals were hardly stuck on the edges of community life; their ranks included lots of crafts- and tradespeople, even some professionals, like teachers and clergy.

That piece has been talked about a surprising amount in the press, and the coverage by professional journalists has been very thoughtful and smart. The best part is that some have taken our historical data and compared it directly to the contemporary situations of immigrants in their communities — in Milwaukee, Toronto, Phoenix. That last-mentioned article, here, was particularly good, by Daniel Gonzalez in the Arizona Republic. But there's one unsettling bit:

Rep. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, doubts the validity of [the] study.

"I think it's a fabrication," he said.

Merriam-Webster's 11th defines 'fabrication' this way – this is the complete definition, emphasis in the original:

1 : the act or process of fabricating
2 : a product of fabrication; especially: LIE, FALSEHOOD

The second is the relevant meaning here, so this is a serious charge. If it were true, I'd be in trouble for violating academic standards. Just for the record, the results are real; the key data are drawn from the 1910 US Census, which is readily available for now-State-Senator-elect Pearce (pictured above) to review for himself. My guess is that he simply suggested we were engaging in academic misconduct without looking at the paper. To give him a chance, I sent Pearce a copy of our paper, but haven't heard back.

It makes you wonder what standards lawmakers are held to in their public pronouncements. Oh wait, we KNOW the answer to that.

Image from here.

Language and immigration

The most recent round of talk about immigration reform has again brought language and immigration to the fore, and Chris Hayes has posted an important point, here (and graphic from there, from the Migration Policy Institute and you can click to embiggen):

Most proposals would require some level of English proficiency in order to qualify for naturalization. But as the Migration Policy Institute found in a 2011 report, even seemingly small differences in the level of English proficiency required for naturalization could determine whether millions of people qualify or are left out.

At the end of 2012, Miranda Wilkerson & Joseph Salmons (the latter a member of Team Verb) published "Linguistic Marginalities: Becoming American without Learning English" in the Journal of Transnational American Studies 4.2 (available here). They show that into the 20th century, German monolinguals in Wisconsin weren't marginal in some of the obvious ways people today expect or assume. Lots of evidence shows that the people in these communities considered themselves and were American, and they conclude that "an ability to speak English has never characterized an American identity".

They're building on earlier work where they showed that up to a quarter of some communities were monolingual in 1910, a third of those people born here. And the word on the street is that there's a diss coming that shows considerably higher numbers for at least one community in eastern Wisconsin. 

Sure would be nice if people making policy got a little historical perspective on some of these issues.