By: beverly j. irby & Rafael lara alecio  (Page 3/12)

In many cases, as the Latino children progress in school, they become the mouthpieces of the parents, negotiating small deals to large ones such as the purchase of a car. Though the quick acquisition of the English language presents a problem for many immigrants, we have observed, on the other hand, that the Spanish language group, itself, is a growing economic power in the United States. The immigration of Latinos appears to be unlike that of any other large immigrant group, such as the Germans over 200 years ago. Whereas the Germans assimilated much more rapidly, learning and using English as indentured servants, the sheer number of Latinos immigrating with their strong ties to their culture and language, the proliferation of mass media, maintenance of Latino communities, and the general private and governmental responses to these late 20th and early 21st Century arrivals are different. According to Grow (2004), 78% of U.S. Latinos speak Spanish, even if they also know English, according to the Census Bureau. More specifically, in maintaining the language and culture, the 21 million Mexicans have something no other immigrant group has had:

They are a car ride away from their home country. Many routinely journey back and forth, allowing them to maintain ties that Europeans never could. The dual identities are reinforced by the constant influx of new Latino immigrants--roughly 400,000 a year, the highest flow in U.S. history. The steady stream of newcomers will likely keep the foreign-born, who typically speak mostly or only Spanish, at one-third of the U.S. Hispanic population for several decades. Their presence means that ‘Spanish is constantly refreshed, which is one of the key contrasts with what people think of as the melting pot,’ says Roberto Suro, director of the Pew Hispanic Center, a Latino research group in Washington. (Grow, 2004).

Today, 97% of Mexican kids whose parents are immigrants and 76% of other Hispanic immigrant children know Spanish, even as nearly 90% also speak English very well, according to a decade-long study by University of California at Irvine sociologist Rubén G. Rumbaut. More striking, those Latino kids keep their native language at four times the rate of Filipino, Vietnamese, or Chinese children of immigrants. ‘Before, immigrants tried to become Americans as soon as possible,’ says Sergio Bendixen, founder of Bendixen&Associates, a polling firm in Coral Gables, Fla., that specializes in Hispanics.

As a result of this growth and maintenance of the Spanish language, U.S. institutions are scrambling to accommodate this linguistic group. As evidence, the Labor Department and Social Security Administration are hiring more Spanish-speaking administrators to handle the flow of Spanish speakers into the workforce (Grow, 2004). Additionally, the power language of Spanish is observed in the media.

According to "The State of the News Media 2004" (n.d.), since 1990 the circulation of Spanish-language dailies has more than tripled and ad revenues of Spanish-language dailies have grown more than sevenfold. In the television media, there are two networks aimed at the Spanish-speaking audience--Telemundo and Univision. Telemundo, the smaller of the two, was launched in 1986 by Saul Steinberg and Henry Silverman of Reliance Capital Group, who believed mainstream outlets were not paying enough attention to the nation's growing Spanish-speaking population. In 1998, Telemundo was sold to Sony for $539 million, and within four years, 2002, the network was purchased by NBC for $2.7 billion. Univision, the largest Spanish-language television station, has roots that trace back to 1961 to a small station in San Antonio, came into existence in its current form in 1992, when the network was purchased from Hallmark by a consortium of buyers. When Telemundo sold for $2.7 billion, some estimated Univision's value to be at least $8 billion. Since then, Univision has acquired the Hispanic Broadcasting Company's radio group for $3 billion. According to Wentz (2005), the ads on Univision attracted $2.7 billion dollars in revenue in 2004. Also in 2004, two movies appeared at the cinema in Spanish language, María llena eres de gracia and Motorcycle Diaries, and both were nominated for the 2005 Oscars.