[i](contd.)[/i]
But while immigration has powered the rise of Spanish-language media, a new demographic trend is already shifting the balance in favor of English — even in the heaviest immigrant media markets in America. In Los Angeles, home to the nation's largest Latino immigrant population, Spanish-language radio stations routinely topped the charts for most of the 1990's. But the growth of Spanish-language radio leveled off in the last few years. For the past nine months, KROQ, an alternative, youth-oriented rock station, has snagged the region's highest overall ratings. It is the first time since 1991 that an English-language station has remained No. 1 for three consecutive ratings periods. A fragmented Spanish-language radio market helped KROQ, but the station has a fundamental trend on its side.
"The Hispanic share of our listenership has increased gradually over the past 10 years," says Trip Reeb, KROQ's general manager. Without actively seeking to broaden its ethnic appeal, the station, long considered "white," now has a 40 percent Latino audience. In fact, a growing number of mainstream English-language radio stations find themselves with sizable Latino audiences. "Right when everyone is discovering the importance of using Spanish, we're seeing Latinos become the backbone of the English-language audience," said Patricia Suarez, president of Suarez/Frommer & Associates, an advertising firm in Pasadena, Calif.
Sometime in the 1990's, demographers say, the foreign-born portion of the Latino population reached its peak. In other words, on the basis of current projections, from now on the immigrant or first generation will be a smaller percentage of Hispanic America. According to Barry Edmonston, the head of the Population Research Center at Portland State University, the fastest-growing segment of the Latino population is the third generation, which is projected to triple by 2040. The second generation, is expected to double. "In every immigrant experience, there is a shift from immigrant culture to ethnic American culture," said Mr. Edmonston. "Hispanics are in the middle of that shift right now."
As American Latinos now become less an immigrant market and more an ethnic market, the equation of Latinos with Spanish is beginning to fade. While slower to make the shift than other immigrant groups, Latino linguistic assimilation is not entirely unlike that of immigrants at the turn of the 20th century. According to the 1990 Census, fully two-thirds of third-generation Latino children spoke only English. And while bilingualism does persist longer within Latino families, particularly along the border region, there is no indication this precludes the use of English as the primary language.
As in past waves of immigration, the first generation tends to learn only enough English to get by; the second is bilingual; and the third tends to be English-dominant if not monolingual.
"The big picture is that bilingualism is very difficult to maintain in the U.S., and by the third generation it is extraordinarily difficult to maintain," said Richard Alba, a sociology professor at the State University of New York at Albany. "This is because English is so dominant and so highly rewarded."
[i](to be contd.)[/i]