The 11 essays in Zentella's edited volume investigate language socialization practices of U.S. Latinos and together make possible a conceptualization of Latino language and literacy that resists “a view of Latino parents as monolithic and unconcerned about education” (p. 3). In her introduction, Zentella briefly traces the history of language socialization research and introduces the framework that undergirds the volume.
In chap. 1, Zentella unpacks the premises of language socialization research, focusing in particular on the language/culture interface, and calls readers' attention to both the “promises and pitfalls” of language socialization research. Chaps. 2–5 pay attention to the roles of the family and the church in language socialization. Robert Bayley & Sandra Schecter's chapter, “Family decisions about schooling and Spanish maintenance,” highlights the tensions that arise for some Mexicano parents in negotiating success in school with cultural and linguistic maintenance. In “Mexicanos in Chicago,” Marcia Farr & Elias Dominguez Barajas analyze the ways that the ranchero variety of Spanish figures as ideologically paradoxical in a Mexican social network in Chicago, with parents encouraging its use at home while at times promoting English-only at school. “Language socialization with directives in two Mexican immigrant families in South Central Los Angeles,” by Fazila Bhimji, analyzes variation in the uses of child-directed directives, showing that low-income immigrant families do not socialize children in monolithic ways. Lucila D. Ek's “Staying on God's path” investigates the ways in which linguistic practices associated with the church serve the dual function of socializing Latino youth into a religious identity and into Spanish language use.
Chap. 6, “Como hablar en silencio” by Magaly Lavandenz, brings to light the socio-psychological realities of Central American immigrants who, in order to succeed in Los Angeles, sublimate their national identities and replace their local dialects with Mexican Spanish. Ana Roca's autobiographical essay, “Raising a bilingual child in Miami,” is a meditation on the problems and pleasures of raising bilingual children. In “Dominican children with special needs in New York City,” M. Victoria Rodriguez discovers that, despite disability and economic disadvantage, the children in her study were able to develop literacy and language skills at home through a variety of experiences. “Seeing what's there,” by Carmen I. Mercado, underscores the ways in which literacy factors as a way of “making sense of and responding to lived experience” (145). Ana Maria Relano Pastor's “The language socialization experiences of Latina mothers in southern California” addresses the language values of Latina mothers and the ways those values then factor into language socialization practices and experiences.
Drawing on poststructural theorists such as Butler and Althusser, Norma Gonzalez's “Children in the eye of the storm” theorizes schools as sites in which dominant metanarratives can be contested and in which “critical agency” among students can emerge in opposition to disempowering language ideologies, such as English-only.
The chapters in this volume work together in making possible a view of language socialization that can account for the diversity of Latino communities and Latino linguistic practices. This book is a valuable tool for readers looking for pedagogical information as well as theoretical and empirical advancements in research on language socialization in U.S. Latino communities.
