Coco Fusco Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Coco Fusco - Essay Example An established research literature finds that there are substantial labor market payoffs for foreign workers who speak English; yet, there is no research on the payoff for workers with abilities in English and another language. Even if English remains the dominant language of the U.S. populace, there are good a priori reasons to expect multiple language skills to provide an earnings advantage for workers and a competitive advantage for employers who hire those workers. In an increasingly global economy, multinational corporations and import/export businesses need those rare workers--about 7% of the U.S. work force, by Coco's estimate--who can speak both English and another language. Decades of growing immigration have created diverse communities of non-native-English-speakers across the country, from Spanish speakers throughout the Southwest to Vietnamese in enclaves of major West and East coast cities. Workers often need to speak languages other than English in supervisory and middl eman/professional service-provider occupations. Moreover, research finds that bilinguals tend to perform better in school, suggesting that bilingualism improves academic ability and, probably, productivity. At least one analyst, however, has cast doubt on the supposition that bilingualism confers an earnings advantage.