"You Can Talk in Espagñol!" A Case Study of an African American Emergent Bilingual/Biliterate Identity

• In Event: Identity Development in Bilingual and Dual-Language Settings

Abstract

This ethnographic case study explores the development of one African-American student’s bilingual/biliterate identity through her enrollment in a Spanish-English Dual Language Education program. We integrate the frameworks of identity in interaction and monoglossic and raciolinguistic language ideologies to understand how this student approaches her Spanish language and literacy development from kindergarten to grade 5. The study documents Tamara's identity as she journeyed from a Spanish enthusiast in kindergarten who embraced her emerging bilingualism/biliteracy to a student who seemed to question her identity as Spanish literate person. Specifically, we examine her affective response to developing bilingualism and biliteracy. We identify three paradoxical influences, or double-binds, in how she was differently positioned across multiple interactions as a bilingual African-American student.

Authors

• Eurydice B. Bauer, University of South Carolina

• Lucia Cardenas Curiel, Michigan State University

• Christina M. Ponzio, Melvindale-Northern Allen Park Schools