The role of family and community bicultural socialization in the bilingual proficiency of immigrant young adults

Previous research on acculturation has emphasized the cognitive and emotional benefits of biculturalism and bilingualism for immigrants. Parents, schools, and peers each play an essential role in the development of bilingual proficiency; however, most research has focused on family socialization for heritage language (HL) acquisition and schools’ role in English acquisition. This study adopted a bidimensional approach to examine the impact of socialization by both family and community on bilingual proficiency among young adults. We hypothesized that families and community members not only socialize ethnic practices and influence young adults’ HL proficiency, but also promote English proficiency simultaneously. Participants included 302 Latino and Asian American young adults from immigrant families ranging in age from 18 to 25 who completed an online survey. Hierarchical regression analyses found that both family and community were significant predictors of heritage language proficiency, however, family, but not community, was a significant predictor of English proficiency. In addition, moderation analyses suggested that these relationships were stronger among Asian Americans than Latinos. These results support the dual role of family cultural socialization for both heritage language and English proficiency and also demonstrate that the community context should not be overlooked by researchers. The present study represents an important step toward understanding the social factors that support bilingualism.