International Journal of Bilingual
Education and Bilingualism
Editor: Colin Baker, University of Wales, Bangor
Review Editor: Aneta Pavlenko, Temple University, Philadelpia
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Volume: 2 Number: 2 Page: 114–130
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Bilingual Education in an Immigrant Community: Proposition 227 in California
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Marjorie Faulstich Orellana, Lucila Ek and Arcelia Hernandez
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Drawing from multiple data sources (observations, interviews, and focus groups) collected during two ethnographic studies in a Latino immigrant community in Los Angeles, California, we analyse community
members' perspectives on bilingualism and language uses - views that have been largely neglected in recent policy debates about bilingual education. We explore parents' and children's talk about language;
both emphasised the importance of English, but for very different reasons. Parents focused on their children's language learning as a measure of their academic progress, and a tool for future opportunities;
children treated language as a tool for signalling particular kinds of identities, and especially to present themselves as 'American'. We situate these views within the social context and historical moment:
a time when many immigrant families lead transnational lives, actively negotiating across linguistic as well as national borders; and a time in which bilingual education has come under intense attack in
the state.
© Multilingual Matters 1998
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