2.1 Diglossia, assimilation, and bilingualism among the hispanics  (Page 9/17)

           Nevertheless, this rectilinear version of assimilation is in need of important corrections. Alexander Portes (2004) handled the concept of segmented assimilation in order to describe an assimilationist process that is opened to different alternatives and that, in any case, is not an unquestionable safe-conduct for ascending social mobility and the social acceptance. According to this scheme, there is a reduced segment of the second generation, Hispanic immigrant population that will easily journey toward North American middle-class positions, thanks to the human capital and material resources of their parents. For this group, their ethnicity and maternal language are optional characteristics that will only show when necessary. They maintain a certain linguistic loyalty to the Spanish language, although lacking any militant attitude. There is another segment, also demographically reduced, that will climb positions in the social scale in spite of their poverty, thanks to the common networks of their ethnic community. For these people, their ethnicity is a distinguishing characteristic of their identity and will conserve a good level of linguistic loyalty to their maternal language. The third segment, the most numerous, is the one that follows the integration’s normal route. They do not have economic facilities, or a special human capital; they are not involved in the political action, labor unions, or citizenship actions that will act as a trampoline for social ascent. They have sufficient competence in English, a rudimentary professional preparation, and their process of integration, although laborious, is sufficiently positive as to maintain their faith in the American dream. And, finally, is the fourth segment that has not managed to cross the limits of the neighborhood and that, in spite of their linguistic competence in English, has not found the opportunities of social promotion. They are on the edge of the knife; on one side, the dream of the American way of life, on the other is the sub-world of gangs, drugs, bad conduct, youth pregnancies, and premature death. For this last segment, ethnicity is not an option or a positive sign of identity, but a stigma of subordination. They have lost their Spanish language and their competence in English suffers through the process of regression in the presence of social failure. Many take refuge in the slang known as Spanglish, even though this hybrid is not an exclusive language of this social segment. Between the monolingual and bilingualism assimilation, Spanglish appears as a hypothetical alternative in future scenario of the Spanish language.

Spanglish, that crazy slang

In the scenarios drawn out by the sociolinguists about the future of the Spanish language in the U.S., Spanglish , that resulting mixture of the contact of English and Spanish, is an alternative to consider. Ilan Stavans (2003), in his work Spanglish that is subtitled, “The Formation of a New American Language,” told that on a certain occasion, he was approached by a Spanish journalist: “Will Spanglish someday replace the Spanish language?” Stavans avoided the answer, but the question, apparently outlandish, is perfectly reasonable from the historical-genetic perspective of languages. A thousand years ago, the same question with the same touch of extravagance could have been asked in the Iberian Peninsula: Do you think the vulgar dialect of the Castilian Barbarians could substitute the cultured dialect? Ramon Menendez Pidal (1965) inidcated that in the Leonine court of the 10 ^th century, courtiers, completely cultured in their dialectal speech, watched with absolute scorn the linguistic uses of Castilians, who they thought of as Barbarian personages for their rough dialectal variety plagued with vulgar neologisms. Menendez Pidal imagines the Castilian Count Fernan Gonzalez telling the Leonine count of Saldaña: “Cras tendré la mía carrera pora Castilla” (tomorrow I will leave for Castile). This sounded like barbarianism not fitted to the norms of good speaking according to the court advisors. First, I will have instead of I would have ; then that of race, as it is only said by the common people in Leon, instead of saying illa carraria , as it is taught in grammar (Leonine!), or at least, ela carreira , according to how our parents taught us. And how badly does Castile or opening sound, when it should be correctly said as Castiella and portiello . Then, Don Ramon finished, when the Valiant Cid completed the supremacy of Castile, the characteristics of their Barbarian dialectal speech began to prevail as a norm of good speaking, relegating to the Leonine speech to its condition of marginal dialect of West Spain.