题型：阅读理解 题类：常考题 难易度：普通
云南省宾川县第四高级中学2017-2018学年高二上学期英语9月月考试卷
In the U.S., speaking more than one language fluently is not very common — except in Los Angeles, California. The city has one of the largest populations in the U.S. of young people between the ages of 18 and 34. More than half of them in Los Angeles are bilingual (会说两种语言的).
Maria Elena Burgos, a mother of two American-born daughters, is cooking a Mexican breakfast. She says making Mexican food is just one of the many traditions in her home. Another is speaking Spanish to her children. “We want to keep Spanish somewhere in their learning too, not only at home.” Ms. Burgos thinks being bilingual will give them more opportunities in the competitive world. Knowing Spanish also means the children can talk with their relatives in Mexico.
Ms. Burgos' daughters both want to know their family's culture. “We are doing this in order to go back to our roots because that's part of who we are,” they say.
The U.S. Census Bureau (人口普查局) says more than half the adults in the Los Angeles area between 18 and 34 years old speak a language other than English at home. For the whole country, the number of bilingual adults is only 25 percent. The number of bilingual speakers has gone up since the 1990s.
University of California Los Angeles professor Raul Hinojosa says that in the past, the children and grandchildren of immigrants (移民) did not continue to speak the parents' native language. But now the opposite is true.
In the last ten years, more immigrant parents say they want their children to keep speaking their native language. Mr. Hinojosa calls their choice the “path of pride”. The decision to keep a native language is clear in Los Angeles now. And, as the number of minorities in the U.S. continues to grow, he thinks bilingualism will spread to the rest of the country.
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