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Everyday Life & Health
Young Hispanics battle a world of two languages, cultures and lifestyles. Second and third generation Hispanics hold on to their Hispanic heritage and language while living the American way by speaking a dialect called 'Spanglish.'
“I think it’s an advantage,” says Dr. Peter Gingiss, a linguistic professor at the University of Houston. “Spanish speakers don’t get enough credit for it.”
Gingiss defines Spanglish as a type of code switching in which the Spanish vocabulary is combined into the English language.
“Some people criticize it because we don’t write this way, but when you look at it the ability to mix the syntax, to have a noun that is Spanish and a verb that is English and direct objects that are also mixed--this is highly complicated. Yet we do it almost instantly,” said UH sociology professor Nestor Rodriguez.
The use of Spanglish is rapidly spreading through advertising and media of popular culture, through radio and television stations. Advertisers such as Pepsico are focusing highly on the young Hispanic market according to Jackie Diaz, a media market buyer for Fogarty Klein Monroe.
During the Super Bowl, Toyota aired a bilingual commercial in which a Hispanic father is driving his young son in their new hybrid Camry. When the father explains how the hybrid car switches between gas and electric power, the son compares it to the way his father can switch between English and Spanish. He tells his son that he bought the car for the same reason he learned to speak English, to better the son's future.
From 2000 to 2020 the entire non-Hispanic labor force is projected to grow by 11.5 million workers, a growth rate of 9 percent according to a Pew Hispanic Center study. The study also found that the Latino second-generation labor force will increase by 5.4 million workers, a growth rate of 209 percent. Nearly one-fourth of the nation's labor force growth over the next 20 years will be from the children of Latino immigrants.
The number of second-generation Latinos aged 5 to 19 is projected to more than double from 2000 to 2020, growing from 4.4 million to 9.0 million people, according to the Pew Hispanic Center research. The National Association of Bilingual Education found that about one in seven of the new students enrolling in U.S. schools over these 20 years will be second-generation Latino.
Research from NABE also found that bilingualism is correlated with greater mental flexibility because the command of two symbolic systems provides more than one way to approach a problem. These advantages are necessary to achieve the substantial proficiency in both languages required to balance bilingualism.
“In the workforce, being bilingual is an advantage allowing for a conceptual background in two cultures, therefore Hispanics are able to [better] strategize work procedures,” said Rodriguez.
The second generation is divided between those who speak only English and those who are bilingual in English and Spanish with just a small fraction that speaks only Spanish, according to NABE.
According to JoJo Finkeldei, Human Resource Director for Clear Channel Radio, being bilingual is a great advantage for the news media, advertisers or anyone else seeking to communicate with the Hispanic population.
“Here at Clear Channel Radio Houston, it is an advantage for applicants because we have a Hispanic radio station, and that’s just one criteria that helps them have an advantage to getting a job,” said Finkeldei.
Hispanic consumers spend about 22 hours a week listening to radio while the general population listens for less than 20 hours a week, according to the Radio Advertising Bureau.
“By having the ability of being bilingual you increase reaching markets that are bilingual,” said Rodriguez.
© Copyright World Internet News 2006-07
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