Modern Languages and Literatures, Department of
Date of this Version
2014
Citation
Published in Journal of Language, Identity & Education 13:3 (2014), pp. 135-152; doi: 10.1080/15348458.2014.919806
Abstract
This article examines the ways in which a group of first-generation Latino immigrants to the U.S. Midwest conceptualized their role in their children’s bilingual development. Respondents were asked to identify the individuals or institutions on which their children’s language and academic development depended, as well as household practices perceived as conducive to Spanish maintenance, and perceived obstacles to their children’s use of Spanish in the domains of home, school, and community. Discussion centers on maternal perceptions of agency because of the centrality of the mother in intergenerational minority language transmission. It is argued here that immigrant mothers’ perceptions of agency are impacted by several factors. Among them: the experience of migration, the power imbalance created when their children are more fluent than the parents are in the majority language and culture, and finally, by the negotiation of ideological tensions between members of intra-community Latino networks of solidarity and the community at large.
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Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, First and Second Language Acquisition Commons, Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Communication Commons, Spanish Linguistics Commons, Speech and Rhetorical Studies Commons
Comments
Copyright © 2014 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. Used by permission.