Brazilian Latinx Families' Experiences With Bilingual Education and Gentrification in Massachusetts

• In Event: Losing Place, Losing Opportunity: The Varied Experiences of Latinx Families With Neighborhood and School Gentrification

Abstract

Bilingual education appears to be ressurging in the U.S., with growing demands for dual language bilingual education (DLBE) programs that gather language minoritized and majority children in the same classrooms aiming to promote bilingualism, biliteracy, and cross-cultural competence for all (Cervantes-Soon, 2014). Despite accounts that DLBE can improve educational experiences for students learning English (Lindholm-Leary, 2005), recent studies posit that existing social inequalities tend to be reproduced within and around DLBE programming (Oliveira et al., 2020). This includes inequitable access to enacting DLBE, with schools offering these programs in economically privileged areas or among racially homogenous populations (Dorner, 2016). Zeroing in on this issue, this paper explores how Brazilian children and their parents navigate a DLBE program (Portuguese-English) implemented at a public elementary school in Massachusetts. This school is part of a school choice district and is located in an affluent neighborhood while the families in this study lived in a low-income area with a high concentration of Brazilian immigrants. Stemming from a 3-year ethnography, data for this presentation includes classroom observations of 12 Brazilian children (6-7 years old) and in-depth interviews with their parents and teachers.

The findings reveal that while the bilingual program was envisioned to better serve the Brazilian immigrant community and depended on the attendance of Brazilian children to be successful, its implementation in an affluent, predominantly white neighborhood imposed hurdles to Brazilian families and attuned Brazilian children to inequity dynamics. First, Brazilian parents expressed gratitude for being able to send their children to a school with a DLBE program that supported heritage language maintenance. However, parents spoke about the financial and logistical challenges derived from sending their children to school in a neighborhood where they cannot afford to live. The parents also shared their concerns that the rising prices of apartment rentals around them could push their families out of this district, curtailing their children’s ability to attend the program. Parents also stressed the need to work extensively to afford their current living arrangements, but framed these experiences as “sacrifices” to provide their children with a good education. Furthermore, observations of Brazilian children in bilingual classrooms showed that they were attuned to differences between the neighborhoods where they lived and went to school, and between their current living arrangements and what was promised to them upon migration. For example, the children talked about “mansions” in the school neighborhood, explaining that they came to the U.S. for the promise of living in big houses, while also describing living arrangements that included sharing one apartment with several families and inhabiting small apartments in precarious conditions that are “far from everything.”

These findings have implications for the implementation of bilingual education programs and the schools that host them, such as the need to more holistically support immigrant families’ access to bilingual education. There is also a need for bilingual programs to transcend the focus on language acquisition to approach critical inequity issues that young students experience and talk about with their classmates on a regular basis.

Author

• Mariana Lima Becker, University of Georgia