Language in the Lives of Ethnic Minorities: Cuban American Families in Miami

Working-class and middle-class mothers of Cuban heritage were questioned about their modes of accommodation to America in terms of language proficiencies Specifically, they were asked about their own language fluency, in both Spanish and English, and that of their children The focus was on the within-family dynamics of the accommodation process, and the links between mothers' and children's language fluencies and children's school performance Two distinct patterns emerged For working-class mothers, the emphasis was more on encouraging their children to learn English in order to ‘succeed’ in America, especially in schoola ‘subtractive’ form of bilingualism and biculturalism where advances in English appear to be at the expense of Spanish fluency and heritage culture maintenance In contrast, for middle-class mothers, success was associated more with the encouragement of Spanish competence, not English-a form of‘additive’bilingualism where the heritage language and culture are protected as the process of Americanization runs its course