Bilingual Education in an Immigrant Community: Proposition 227 in California

Abstract

Drawing from multiple data sources (observations, interviews, and focus groups) collected during two ethnographic studies in a Latino immigrant community in Los Angeles, California, we analyse community members' perspectives on bilingualism and language uses - views that have been largely neglected in recent policy debates about bilingual education. We explore parents' and children's talk about language; both emphasised the importance of English, but for very different reasons. Parents focused on their children's language learning as a measure of their academic progress, and a tool for future opportunities; children treated language as a tool for signalling particular kinds of identities, and especially to present themselves as 'American'. We situate these views within the social context and historical moment: a time when many immigrant families lead transnational lives, actively negotiating across linguistic as well as national borders; and a time in which bilingual education has come under intense attack in the state.