Cover not available
Article published In:
Spanish in Context
Vol. 12:3 (2015) ► pp.327–348

La palabra enseña, pero el ejemplo arrastra

Profesionista immigrants’ views of Spanish and English

Although previous research has focused on working class immigrants, currently, one out of every nine immigrants from Mexico derives from its university-educated class of individuals, known as profesionistas. Profesionistas’ enhanced cultural capital allows for greater mobility in terms of housing, travel and personal contacts beyond U.S. Spanish-speaking communities as compared to traditional working class immigrants from Mexico. Nonetheless, these same conditions are ripe to promote a shift to English for their families. The present study examines the values held by women profesionistas regarding Spanish and English and their use of both languages within their households. The findings reveal that, in contrast to previous studies of Spanish-speaking communities, Spanish is held in equal esteem with English and profesionista informants aspire for their children to cultivate equally strong skills in both languages and make efforts to guide their children’s development of Spanish.
Keywords: profesionistas, language attitudes, language use
Published online: 28 January 2016
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sic.12.3.01mac
References (35)
Alba, R (1999). Immigration and the American Realities of Assimilation and Multiculturalism. Sociological Forum, 14(1), 3–25. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Albo, Adolfo, and Juan L. Ordaz. 2010. Migrant Watch Mexico. Mexico, D.F.: Fundación BBVA Bancomer.Google Scholar
Arceo-Gómez, Eva O. 2012. “Drug-Related Violence and Forced Migration from Mexico to the United States. Munich Personal RePEc Archive Paper 44529. [URL]Google Scholar
Autor, David. 2010. The Polarization of Job Opportunities in the U.S. Labor Market. Washington, D.C.: The Center for American Progress and The Hamilton Project.Google Scholar
BBVA Bancomer. 2011. Situación Migración: México. México, DF: Fundación BBVA Bancomer.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. “The Economics of Linguistic Exchanges. Social Science Information 161: 645–668. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1984a.) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1999. “Language and Symbolic Power. In The Discourse Reader, ed. by Adam Jaworski and Nikolas Coupland, 502–513. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Cavanaugh, Jillian R. 2006. “Little Women and Vital Champions: Gendered Language Shift in a Northern Italian Town. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 16 (2): 194–210. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Consejo Nacional de la Población. 2007. “La migración calificada de mexicanos a los Estados Unidos. Boletín, Año X, Núm. 22. México, D.F.: Consejo Nacional de la Población.Google Scholar
De Houwer, Annick. 1999. “Environmental Factors in Early Bilingual Development: The Role of Parental Beliefs and Attitudes. In Bilingualism and Migration, ed. by Guus Extra and Ludo Verhoeven, 75–95. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
de Vries, Wietse, and Yadira Navarro. 2011. “¿Profesionistas del futuro o futuros taxistas? Los egresados universitarios y el mercado laboral en México. Revista Iberoamericana de Educación Superior 2 (4): 3–27.Google Scholar
Galindo, D. Leticia. 1991. “A Sociolinguistic Study of Spanish Language Maintenance and Language Shift towards English among Chicanos. Lenguas Modernas 181: 107–116.Google Scholar
. 1995. “Language Attitudes toward Spanish and English Varieties: A Chicano Perspective. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences 171: 77–99. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
King, Kendall A., Lyn Fogle, and Aubrey Logan-Terry. 2008. “Family Language Policy. Language and Linguistics Compass 21: 1–16. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
King, Kendall A., and Anna De Fina. 2010. “Language Policy and Latina Immigrants: An Analysis of Personal Experience and Identity in Interview Talk. Applied Linguistics 31 (5): 651–670. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lambert, Wallace E., and Donald M. Taylor. 1996. “Language in the Lives of Ethnic Minorities: Cuban American Families in Miami. Applied Linguistics 17 (4): 477–500. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lareau, Annette. 2002. “Invisible Inequality: Social Class and Childrearing in Black Families and White Families. American Sociological Review 67 (5): 747–776. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lareau, Annette, and Amanda Cox. 2011. “Social Class and the Transition to Adulthood. In Social Class and Changing Families in an Unequal America, ed. by Marcia Carlson and Paula England, 134–164. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Lareau, Annette, and Elliot B. Weininger. 2008. “Class and the Transition to Adulthood. In Social Class: How Does it Work? ed. by Annette Lareau and Dalton Conley, 118–151. New York: Russell Sage.Google Scholar
MacGregor-Mendoza, Patricia. (2015). “Son importantes los dos: Language Use and Attitudes among Wives of Mexican Profesionistas on the U.S.–Mexico Border. In Sociolinguistic Change Across the Spanish-Speaking World: Case Studies in Honor of Anna Maria Escobar, ed. by Kim Potowski and Talia Bugel, 147–186. New York: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
McKenzie, David, and Hillel Rapoport. 2010. “Self-Selection Patterns in Mexico-US Migration: The Role of Migration Networks. The Review of Economics and Statistics 92 (4): 811–821. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Observatorio de Seguridad y Convivencia Ciudadanas. 2010. Boletín Número 2. Accessed March 2, 2010. [URL]Google Scholar
Portes, Alejandro. 2008. “Migration and Social Change: Some Reflections. Paper presented at the Conference Theorizing Key Migration Debates , Oxford University, July 1, 2008. [URL]
Schecter, Sandra R., and Robert Bayley. 1997. “Language Socialization Practices and Cultural Identity: Case Studies of Mexican-Descent Families in California and Texas. TESOL Quarterly 311: 513–541. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schieffelin, Bambi B., and Elinor Ochs. 1986. “Language Socialization. Annual Review of Anthropology 151: 163–191. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Suárez, Debra. 2002. “The Paradox of Linguistic Hegemony and the Maintenance of Spanish as a Heritage Language in the United States. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 23 (6): 512–530. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Swartz, David. 1997. Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Talmy, Steven. 2011. “The Interview as Collaborative Achievement: Ideology, Identity, and Interaction in a Speech Event. Applied Linguistics 321: 25–42 DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tarragona Roig, Mariona, and Nora Hilda Trejo Durán. 2010. “Emigración de jóvenes profesionistas mexicanos: Emigration of young mexican professionals. Multidisciplina 61: 62–71. [URL].Google Scholar
Tuominen, Anne. 1999. “Who decides the Home Language? A look at Multilingual Families. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 140 (1): 59–76. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Valdés, Guadalupe. 1996. Con Respeto: Bridging the Distances between Culturally Diverse Families and Schools: An Ethnographic Portrait. New York: Teachers College Press.Google Scholar
Velázquez, Isabel. 2012. “Mother’s Social Network and Family Language Maintenance. Spanish Language and Literature. Paper 103. [URL].Google Scholar
Warriner, Doris. 2007. “Language Learning and the Politics of Belonging: Sudanese Women Refugees Becoming and Being ‘American’. Anthropology and Education Quarterly 38 (4): 343–359. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zúñiga, Elena, and Miguel Molina. 2008. “Demographic Trends in Mexico: The Implications for Skilled Migration. Washington, D.C.: Migration Policy Institute. [URL].Google Scholar
Cited by (4)

Cited by four other publications

Mata, R.
2023. Bilingualism is good but codeswitching is bad: attitudes about Spanish in contact with English in the Tijuana - San Diego border area. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies 20:4 ► pp. 386 ff. DOI logo
MacGregor-Mendoza, Patricia
2020. The study of language attitudes. In New Approaches to Language Attitudes in the Hispanic and Lusophone World [Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, 25], ► pp. 256 ff. DOI logo
Garcia, Lorena
2018. Language and (Re)Negotiations of Latinx Identity: Latinx Parents’ Approaches to Spanish and Bilingualism. Social Problems DOI logo
Miller, Lauren
2017. The relationship between language proficiency and language attitudes. Spanish in Context 14:1 ► pp. 99 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 16 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.