Professor Phillip Carter has conducted research on bilingualism and Hispanic-English dialects in the United States, particularly in Texas, North Carolina and Florida. He has recently brought extensive media attention to the Miami English dialect through national and international media, including the Miami Herald, El Nuevo Herald, CNN, CNN Español, MSN Latino and BBC Mundo.

Despite all of the economic success that high levels of societal bilingualism have made possible in Miami, very little is done in terms of public policy and education to promote and protect it – and what needs protecting is our Spanish. Miami is demographically unique in that it has the distinction of being both the most Latino large city in the U.S., as well as the most foreign-born. On account of these statistics, we can add a third distinction to the list: Miami is now also the most bilingual large city in North America. As an oral phenomenon, there are – proportionally speaking – more fluent bilinguals in Miami than in San Antonio, Los Angeles, and even Montreal, the Canadian city known for its language politics and strong support of French.

In many ways, Miami thrives on its bilingualism. The Spanish-language media and entertainment industries in the U.S. are largely based here, creating jobs for tens of thousands of people. Tourists from across Latin America flock here, in part because of the ease of getting around in Spanish. And across Miami-Dade County, condos are sold and deals are closed because of the presence of both languages, Spanish and English. In fact, the economic value of bilingualism in Miami is so tremendous that one wonders if the city could exist in its current form without it.

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