These research findings carry some novel implications for policy debates on the problem of
immigrant language barriers.
* Recruiting staff with skills in
immigrant languages and contacts with ethnic communities;
In spite of the massive influx of immigrants and the predominance of
immigrant languages in the United States, it appears difficult for an immigrant child to maintain his or her heritage language in a society where English ability is a prerequisite to academic and social success, and proficiency in the heritage language is not highly regarded.
I begin with the United States, where the argument for maintaining
immigrant languages, predominantly Spanish, holds diminishing traction despite an unofficial "multiculturalism lite." Here symbolic forms of ethnic diversity are widely embraced against a backdrop of common core values and tepid government support for linguistic diversity.
Besides, the website does not give one single example of the multiple
immigrant languages spoken in Denmark today (see http://www.danishimmigrationmuseum.com/ index.php?page=sprog).
(1) The Ethnologue differentiates between indigenous Languages and
immigrant Languages for each country.
is a very multilingual country with 311 spoken languages: 162 are indigenous and 149 are
immigrant languages (Vistawide, 2009).
Significantly for historians of service-learning, the Hull House group took a special opposition to
immigrant languages, which were multiple in the Ninth Ward where the settlement was located and which were strongly defended by immigrant leaders in Chicago as a source of cultural and religious heritage.
On the other hand, I found Ben-Ur's extended remarks on Ladino and on the significance of
immigrant languages instructive and sensitive.
Since one of my dominant interests has always been in the language ideologies in Latin America, such as the creation of the different national dialects, their relationship to Peninsular academic standards, to Portuguese, to privileged and
immigrant languages, and, of course and in the first place, with the indigenous languages, Ortega's chapter on "Representing: The Language of National Formation" was particularly intriguing.
In Canada, some provinces have established heritage language programs in their official school curricula for
immigrant languages (such as Cantonese) and for indigenous languages (such as Inuktitut).