“Culture Is the Way They Live Here”: Young Latin@s and Parents Navigate Linguistic and Cultural Borderlands in U.S. Schools

Abstract

Throughout the United States, deficit perspectives contribute to Latino students' failure in terms of school success. This happens because many educators still regard bilingualism as a deficit. We examined the discourse of one family to better understand how deficit, assimilationist discourse affected them and their two children. We came to understand that, influenced by deficit messages, parents celebrated accelerated English acquisition. Implications for teachers include the recognition and support of linguistic and cultural diversity in the classroom. We suggest a sociocultural perspective that embraces the culture and humanity of every student and helps support the maintenance of multiple cultures.

Key words:

• bilingualism
• discourse
• deficit
• assimilation
• linguistic practices
• sociocultural perspectives

Notes

¹All names, except for the authors' names, are pseudonyms.

² Latin@s has been used in this article to signify a hybrid of Latinos and Latinas, employing gender-fair language. This term is used interchangeably with Latino and Latinos. Although we recognize a broader definition of Latin@, here we focus on a Puerto Rican immigrant family living in South Carolina.

³Transcription conventions used in this paper are as follows: ((behaviors are noted inside double parentheses)), ? indicates rising intonation, each period indicates .1-s pause if repeated,—indicates overlapping speech, bold indicates yelling. Stylistic notations that were not particularly relevant to the analytical framework employed were omitted.

⁴ ESL(English as a second language) is employed due to the mother's use of the term in interviews. The term more commonly used in U.S. schools is ESOL (English for speakers of other languages), due to the great possibility that English may not be a second language but a third, fourth, or fifth.