Regardless of whether respondents were first-generation immigrants or third-generation descendants of immigrants, there was agreement on one thing: the importance of language.

“We found that virtually all Hispanics think that U.S. Hispanic immigrant adults should learn English,” Lopez says.

But researchers “also found that when we asked Hispanics about the importance of Spanish, virtually all of them say it’s important that future generations speak Spanish.”

In other words, English fluency should not come at the expense of that important cultural link to their country of origin.