Why do some immigrants keep their language?
Because it’s who they are. Language isn’t just communication, it’s how you tell your grandmother you love her, how you pray, how you think when you’re exhausted, how you make a joke that actually lands. Immigrants who keep their language aren’t rejecting English. Most of them are learning English, often faster than people realize. They’re keeping something else too, and the two aren’t in competition.
1 · MindWhat people believe, and how they know
Research on immigrant language acquisition in the United States consistently shows that most immigrants learn English, and that their children are usually English-dominant or English-monolingual.
Sociologists Alejandro Portes and Rubén Rumbaut found in their long-running Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (1992–2006) that the vast majority of second-generation immigrants preferred English by adolescence. Third-generation immigrants are typically English monolingual. This three-generation assimilation pattern in language is one of the most robust findings in immigration research.
Heritage language maintenance, keeping the first language, is associated with stronger family relationships across generations, better mental health outcomes for immigrants (reduced feelings of isolation), and cognitive benefits of bilingualism.
Languages carry cultural knowledge that doesn’t translate. Certain concepts, honorifics, ways of addressing family members, forms of humor and care exist in one language but not another. For many immigrants, speaking English at work and at the store while keeping their language at home is not a political statement, it’s how they function.
The ‘English only’ debate often misunderstands this. Most immigrants are not refusing English; they’re maintaining something precious alongside it.
What each tradition or community says
Language is a link to the people who raised you, to your memory, to your sense of self. Losing it, or watching your children lose it, can feel like losing something that cannot be replaced.
Many second-generation Americans feel grief over losing fluency in their parents’ language. The grandchildren who can’t speak to their grandmother in her language feel the gap most acutely. Heritage language loss is often irreversible.
Hearing a different language spoken in your neighborhood isn’t a sign that someone is refusing to belong. It may be a grandmother calling her grandchildren. It may be a prayer. It may be the only conversation where the person in front of you is fully themselves.
2 · HeartWhat it feels like
There’s a particular loneliness in being most yourself in a language most of the people around you can’t hear.
If you’ve ever wished your grandmother were still alive so you could ask her something, you have some sense of why a language is worth keeping.
My friend Maria speaks Spanish with her kids at home. Perfect English in the office. She told me once that Spanish is where she cries. I’ve never forgotten that.Neighbor Radio
3 · HandsHow to be a good neighbor
When you hear someone speaking a language you don’t know, curiosity is kinder than suspicion. ‘What language is that?’ asked with genuine interest almost always opens a conversation.
If you want to honor a neighbor’s heritage language, a simple ‘how do you say hello in your language?’ is enough. They will tell you, and they will remember that you asked.
This weekIs there something you know in your own family’s history, a phrase, a recipe, a song, that came close to being lost? What would have been gone with it?
Four questions to take with you
From Jesus' story of the Good Samaritan, about the stranger who stopped to help. We call it the Samaritan Test.
- Did they see? Or look right past?
- Did they stop? Even when it was inconvenient?
- Did it cost them? Time, money, comfort, reputation?
- Did they treat the person like a person? Not like a label?
Try it on: a conversation happening in a language you can’t follow. What story might be in it that you’ll never have access to?
Quick questions
Don’t immigrants need to learn English?
Yes, and most do. English fluency is strongly correlated with economic mobility in the United States. But learning English doesn’t require abandoning your first language. The two coexist in most immigrant households.
Why does my neighbor speak Spanish even though they’ve been here for years?
Probably because they’re speaking to someone who shares their language, a family member, a friend. Spanish at home doesn’t mean limited English outside.
Is it harmful for children to grow up speaking two languages?
No. Research consistently shows that bilingualism is cognitively beneficial and associated with stronger family relationships. The common fear that it ‘confuses’ children is not supported by evidence.
- Portes & Rumbaut: Legacies, The Story of the Immigrant Second Generation
- Pew Research Center: English Proficiency on the Rise Among Latinos
- American Psychological Association: Benefits of Bilingualism
Written in plain words by the Neighbor Radio team. Each faith's and community's section is checked by someone from that faith or community. Until then, this page says so. Spot something wrong? Tell us. We read every note and fix mistakes.