Bilingual Families In America

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Bilingual Families In some countries, it is common for children to learn two or even more languages at a time and use each of these languages daily to communicate with the people around them. They may utilize Spanish to communicate with their father, French to communicate with their Mother, and they may attend an Italian speaking school. The possibilities are endless. In countries where a dominant language is spoken, such as the United States, families face a dilemma: do they teach their child the language of their heritage and have them be bilingual or do they want them to know only English so that they can better understand the country they are living in? Such a question is faced by almost every family that chooses to immigrate to a new country. According to a study conducted by the United States Census Bureau in 2011, if a child is raised to be bilingual that means they are included in a group of over 60 million other bilingual citizens that speak another language than English at home. Over 75 percent, or 47 million of these people speak English at a level determined…show more content…
If they are unable to communicate with relatives not living in the United States they may not know the full history of their family and may be left out of the typical family traditions that take place. There is likely to be loss of culture when a family immigrates to a new country, but some families take steps to minimize this loss. Families who wish to minimize cultural losses in their children may decorate the house with relics of their old country. They may celebrate holidays of their old country not typically celebrated in the United States. Families can also live in “cultural” neighborhoods, such as China Town or Little Italy. These neighborhoods typically speak the language of the culture and usually have multilingual schools that children can attend (Carlos D.
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