This paper compares two contrasting ideals of what it means to become or to be American within the context of the language choices made by Hispanics in the United States. Its overarching question is: What contextual and individual-level factors influence the decision to maintain or learn Spanish, or see to it that one's children do so?

I develop a "tipping" model of the configuration of area-specific circumstances that influence the "payoff" for bilingualism: the degree to which Spanish-English bilingualism (as opposed to English monolingualism) is viable or desirable in a particular metro area. The model's tipping point is the bilingual:English monolingual ratio at which the utility functions for bilingualism and English monolingualism intersect.

I find that area-specific payoffs influence the probability of bilingualism among Hispanic adults and that - independent of payoffs -residence in a place that is past the tipping point exerts a strong, positive effect on this probability. These results provide empirical support for the tipping model and its usefulness in studying macro- and micro-level language outcomes.