The amount of time people have to invest in learning another language is phenomenal. Not only that, they have to sacrifice family life and other commitments to learn it. Then there is the fact that people do not learn language in a vacume. They learn it with strings attached. What are those strings? Those strings are cultural, they are attached to values and class and region and belonging.
The truth is, to learn a new language properly, you have to let go of some of your original identity, you have to form a new identity. This new identity is often in conflict with your old identity. There is nothing sadder than watching a first generation immigrant massively out of sync with her chidrens' lives. To conserve the value of what you already have and the culture that you already have gives immigrants an additional skill and ability and resource that they should treasure in this knowledge based economy.
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