We thank McCarthy and colleagues for their interest in our work. We agree that immigrant generational status is important, and we also agree that the various Hispanic groups differ in their status. Indeed, we recognize that there are many differences between the groups; it was for this reason we conducted separate analyses for adolescents of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, and “other Latin American” ancestries.
As McCarthy and colleagues note, we found significant differences by language first spoken for Mexican Americans and “other Latin Americans” in marijuana use and heavy drinking. However, we also found that cocaine use was not significantly associated with language first spoken in any of the Hispanic groups included (see Table 3 of our article). Why would the variable “language first spoken” behave differently for use of different drugs? As suggested by McCarthy and colleagues, our findings highlight the complex nature of drug use among Hispanic populations and the fact that this complexity deserves further attention.