"I Was Born With Spanish": The Relationship Between Language Learning and Ethnicity for Young Language Learners

• In Event: 14.044 - Roundtable Session 2
  In Roundtable Session: 14.044-9 - Literacies and Linguistic Identities of Latina/o Students

Abstract

This paper analyzes interviews of 19 focal students enrolled in a dual language program in an urban, elementary school, classified as limited English proficient or reclassified as fluent English proficient, and from a Spanish-dominant home to understand the relationship between language development and ethnic identity construction. Interviews reveal how the focal students construct ethnic identities through language, specifically in how they analyze the differences between the language use of their Spanish-dominant and English-dominant peers. As students are positioned through their language use, language becomes an indicator of how students identify as a Latino/a, which for many of them means they are not American.

Author

• Jennifer Marie Collett, Lehman College - CUNY