While English proficiency enhances labor market outcomes, its role in minority-language regions remains largely unexplored. Employing the U.S.-Mexico border as a minority-language region, we analyze whether English skills differently affect the earnings and occupational sorting of Mexican Americans along the border relative to their non-border peers. We find comparable English deficiency earnings penalties for Mexican immigrants, suggesting that this group responds to English-specific regional wage gaps. U.S.-born men, however, have a larger earnings penalty along the border, possibly reflecting natives’ relative immobility owing to strong geographic preferences. Occupational sorting exercises give credence to this interpretation for native Mexican American females.
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