Shift or replenishment? Reassessing the prospect of stable Spanish bilingualism across contexts of ethnic change

Much of the existing literature on Latinos’ use of Spanish claims that a general pattern of intergenerational decline in the use of Spanish will produce an overall shift away from Spanish use in the U.S. (Rumbaut, Massey, and Bean 2006; Veltman 1983b, 1990). In contrast, recent works emphasize the importance of the social and linguistic context in reinforcing the use of Spanish as well as (pan)ethnic identities among U.S.-born Latinos (Linton 2004; Linton and Jiménez 2009; Stevens 1992). This literature suggests conditions under which Spanish-English bilingualism might become stable at the level of metropolitan areas; however, such conditions depend on how immigration shapes the context of language use for native-born Latinos. Given the declining levels of immigration from Latin America, will bilingualism subside in the U.S., or have certain communities created conditions in which bilingualism can be stable? Using geocoded data from restricted access versions of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) and the American Community Survey (ACS), we model the probability of Spanish-English bilingualism among second- and third-generation Latinos using multilevel models with contextual measures of immigration and language use at both the neighborhood and metropolitan levels. We find evidence that U.S.-born Latinos are heavily influenced by the prevalence of Spanish use among U.S. born Latinos at both the metropolitan and neighborhood levels. Further, the proportion of foreign-born Latinos has little effect on the native born, after controlling for Spanish use among U.S,-born Latinos. These results are a first step in understanding the link between ethnic or panethnic contexts and language practices, and also in producing a better characterization of stable bilingualism that can be tested quantitatively.