Written FINAL EXAM SUBMISSION first part

1. (50 points) You have already chosen and read a sociological article that uses quantitative data analysis.

Please answer the following questions about your article:

a. What is the name of the article? Who is/are its author/s?

Linguistic Life Expectancies: Immigrant Language Retention in Southern California is an article by Rubén G. Rumbaut, Douglas S. Massey, and Frank D. Bean published in 2006 in Population and Development Review.

b. What is/are the research question(s)?

The research subject is linguistic assimilation of the Latin Americans in the United States and the question is whether native language is forgotten by the immigrants and, on the other side, whether their native language can to any extent influence English language and threaten American culture and identity with any harmful effects.

c. What hypothesis or hypotheses are put forth?

Rubén G. Rumbaut, Douglas S. Massey, and Frank D. Bean put forth a hypothesis that the language of Latin Americans cannot have a dangerous impact on the American identity and English language in particular. This hypothesis comes from the task to test the assertion of Samuel P. Huntington presented in his controversial and provocative book Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National Identity. Huntington has stated that the numbers of the Latin American immigrants have become so high that they will inevitably influence the core of American culture and identity in the twenty first century. It is also argues by him that instead of assimilation they tend to live in their segregated communities within Spanish-speaking enclaves. Therefore, the authors of the article present a kind of protest to Huntington’s argument.

d. What sort of data is used?

To check the hypothesis Rubén G. Rumbaut, Douglas S. Massey, and Frank D. Bean base their research on the data from the US Census and other official statistics showing that immigrants of second generation and further quickly shift to English fluency. Besides, several studies with the application of longitudinal surveys among children of immigrants have been utilized as well. The authors have concentrated their attention at the data concerning Southern California, because it is a region geographically and demographically predisposed to the largest numbers of immigrants from Mexico. No other megalopolitan area in the United States is known for such a number of Spanish speakers and people of Mexican origin. So, the authors concentrate their attention on the Immigration and Intergenerational Mobility in Metropolitan Los Angeles (IIMMLA) survey and the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS) conducted in San Diego and concerning the their wave of immigrants.