English fluency of the US immigrants: Assimilation effects, cohort variations, and periodical changes

Abstract

Using 1% Public-Use Microdata Samples (PUMSs) of the 1980, 1990, and 2000 census and the 2010 American Community Survey (ACS), this study evaluates three simultaneous longitudinal trends in immigrants’ English fluency: the assimilation process, variations across arrival cohorts, and periodical changes. The key findings include that the declining initial English fluency among new immigrants reported in a previous study based on 1980 and 1990 data (Carliner, 2000) was reversed in the 1990s and 2000s. Immigrants who arrived during the 2000s have the highest level of English fluency at the year of entry among all cohorts. Immigrants are assimilating. However, changes in social and linguistic environment in the US during the past two decades have suppressed the advancement of immigrants. The decline in the average English attainment from the 1980s to the 1990s reported in a previous study (Pitkin and Myers, 2011) was found to extend to the 2000s. Using new census data, this study updated the current knowledge on immigrants’ English fluency by revealing a never documented upward trend among recent immigrants and suppressive period effects from 1990 to 2010.