English Acquisition by Immigrants to the United States at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century

FOR THOSE COMING to the United States at the turn of the twentieth century, new linguistic and national boundaries replaced accustomed, if not always loved, ethnic allegiances. For those immigrants whose English was minimal or nonexistent, access to needed resources, economic as well as educational, was limited. Residence with kin or others who spoke the same eased some of the struggles of the new land. Throughout this century the countries of origin of immigrants have changed, but the difficulties of becoming American in as well as culture have remained constant. At the beginning of the twentieth century, almost 15% of the population was foreign born, the largest proportion ever in this century (US Bureau of Census 1997). Periods of high immigration of non-English speakers have been accompanied by fears that the United States would not remain an English speaking country, for example, at the founding of the country (Franklin 1753) and now (Veltman 1983; Labov 1994). Crawford (1992) traces the development of exclusionary policies in the United States and quotes Theodore Roosevelt who wrote in a World War I appeal: must have one flag. We must also have but one language (Roosevelt 1917). Yet continued residence in this country has resulted in English acquisition, if not for the immigrants, then for their children or grandchildren. Scholars have identified factors that hindered or accelerated this process but have not had data with which they could map the factors directly onto the neighborhoods in which immigrants lived. This study makes use of such data to examine two closely related questions: How did the acquisition of English vary across first language? Which demographic factors contributed most to the transition to English for immigrants? It verifies quantitatively that those who settled before 1910 in urban areas with speakers of the same first learned English more slowly than those, regardless of first language, who settled in linguistically diverse neighborhoods.