Different areas of the economy, education and government are becoming more aware of the urgent need for bilingual staff in order to improve their services and products and the performance in their activities. I’d like to share with you a couple of cases I found of situations that happen among all types of people and social level in the United States, because of this.

This year the police increased the recruitment of bilingual agents in the U.S., according to an article in the NY Associated Press (in Spanish).

Police departments in the United States increased their efforts to recruit agents who speak a second language other than English, and in some cases, offer higher pay and the opportunity to travel abroad as part of a language immersion programs.

The police chiefs are confident that the investment will result in better law enforcement in communities with large numbers of immigrants, and reduce the distrust that many immigrants feel towards police agents.

A third of the employees of the New York Police Department speak a second language. Of these, 785 have a language or translation certification into 63 languages.

In January in Charlotte, North Carolina, a school secretary of Hispanic origin sued the largest school system in this state because the campus director forbade her to speak Spanish with parents who had a low level of English. (Univision.com)

This Nicaraguan secretary filed a lawsuit because it was clearly a violation of her civil rights, as she was only trying to help the parents.

Companies across the board increasingly feel the need to hire a greater number of bilingual staff because of the growing population of mostly Spanish speaking immigrants. The Hispanic immigrant population is the largest in number and growth.

After so many years and so many new residents of Hispanic origin, among others, living in the U.S., Americans should ultimately adapt to the idea that the country is a melting pot composed of immigrants from everywhere, of all kinds and of all languages. This is how the country was formed in the first place, by immigrants.

It is better to work together and progress, rather than to stop advancing and lose so much of what we have accomplished just because people speak a different languages.

The general consensus about Spanish in the U.S. is that its use, in terms of the number of speakers and general “visibility” (mainstream media, advertising, etc.), is growing exponentially. And with record numbers of Spanish-speaking immigrants coming from South and Central America, it looks like this will continue indefinitely. So, there is no doubt that thousands, millions of Spanish speakers are going to the U.S; the question, however, is this: Does the Spanish that immigrants take with them take root in the U.S or is it ultimately lost?

With more than thirty-five million people in the U.S. speaking Spanish as their main language at home, its use is certainly more than a blip on English’s radar. Add the large number of English speakers studying Spanish, be it in elementary school, at college, or as part of job training (medical professionals, govt. workers, etc.), and you have a very significant portion of the U.S. population with at least a basic ability to communicate in Spanish. Bilingual education programs are bigger now than they have ever been before, and businesses and corporations are spending more money than ever on bilingual advertising. So why is there any doubt?

For one, studies have shown that Spanish is rarely passed on to third generation Hispanics in the U.S. Children that do learn both languages at a young age generally have a much greater proficiency in English than in Spanish, due to the educational system and sheer exposure to English. History has also shown that even large numbers of immigrants cannot maintain a language that is not passed down by the generations. German, for example, was once widely-spoken in the U.S., but due to events like World War I and II, immigration reform, etc., the current number of German speakers in the U.S. has dwindled to tiny enclaves.

So will the use of Spanish in the United States ultimately rise, fall or hold steady? That remains to be seen.