Escuchando a las Familias: Continued Advocacy for Spanish Language Maintenance in Chicago

• In Event: "Hasta La Raíz": Rooting Justice-Centered Dual Language Bilingual Education in Illinois

Abstract

This paper reports on a project where our research collective provided information to Latinx Spanish-speaking parents of students in Chicago about the language education options available for their children, in order to support their navigation of the school choice system. Most Latinx families have traditionally desired for their children to maintain and develop Spanish in school (Hernando-Lloréns & Blair, 2017). However, most language programs in the neighborhood schools in Chicago where Latinx populations attend offer only transitional programs with an end goal of English-only instruction. Despite the increase of dual language bilingual education (DLBE) programs in Chicago where students can develop their Spanish and English literacy, such programs are not offered in every school and must be sought after.

We have engaged in a form of “transformative ruptures” (Delgado Bernal & Alemán, 2017), or strategies to disrupt and provoke small changes in systems that often hinder the educational success of Latinx communities by making information accessible to Latinx parents. Our research collective offered 10 workshops in Spanish in various Latinx neighborhoods around Chicago, clarifying the differences between the types of language programs available to their children. We collected a total of 111 surveys, 29 individual interviews, and had 15 people participate in a focus group.

Here we highlight a few themes from our preliminary analysis of interviews, including 1) DLBE programs encourage parent engagement, and 2) Difficulty navigating systems and required self-advocacy. We also offer quotes from parents, which have been translated from Spanish. Parents with children in DLBE schools seemed to understand the long-term objectives of the program well and were better informed than parents with children in other types of programs.
Well, my experience has been that well, I was never much involved in the school. I
always just left my child and returned home… but now, since my goal has changed, I say
to myself, I’m going to go see what is happening in my daughter’s school. I have to get
involved to know what things I agree with and what things I don’t like.
Reflecting on their own change in engagement with their child’s schooling, the parent acknowledged that they wanted to be more informed about school decisions being made.

A second theme was that the educational system was difficult for parents to navigate, particularly if they were seeking more than a transitional bilingual education program for their children:
So it’s a process that they make difficult sometimes. And if you don’t advocate right? Or
defend your rights, they’re not going to do it. They ignore you. Despite having told them, I want her to start in dual language…
Parents overwhelmingly want their children to continue learning Spanish in school, rather than switch to English-only instruction. However, even when they request particular program offerings, they sometimes feel they are not being heard.

In this work, we disseminate information to local Spanish-speaking communities about their options, support their navigation of a complicated educational system, and document their voices as they reflect about their experiences advocating for their children.

Authors

• P. Zitlali Morales, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Megan Tzeitel Marshall, University of Chicago

• Norma Monsivais Diers, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Ramona Alcalá, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Massiel Zaragoza, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Nancy Domínguez-Fret, Northern Illinois University