Category: Bilingualism

Ghosts of Sheridan Circle

Targeted killing of political enemies—assassinations—is thankfully rare in the United States. The most famous such assassination occurred in Washington, DC. And it was committed by a close ally of the United States. In September 1976, Chile’s Pinochet dictatorship…

Bilingualism: Editor’s Letter

It was snowing heavily in New York. It didn’t matter much to me. I was in sunny Santo Domingo with my New York Dominican neighbors on the Christmas break from school. I learned Spanish from them and also at the local bodega, where the shop owner insisted I ask…

Two Wixaritari Communities

English + Español
I first arrived in the wixárika (huichol) zone north of Jalisco, Mexico, in 1998. The communities didn’t have electricity then, and it was really hard to get there because the roads were simply…

Bilingualism in Perú

“What does Gloriosky mean?” Mateo asked me. Gloriosky? How do I explain a term typically used in older vaudeville Broadway shows and movies? How do I contextualize this for a Peruvian student with zero reference to this type of genre? These are the kinds of questions that…

De-encapsulated Bilingual Education in Brazil

One school in São, Paulo, Brazil—with which co-author Susan Clemensha is very involved— is striving to create multilingual and multicultural contexts for learning, distancing itself from the…

After the American Dream

“Migrants have much more to offer a country than they take away from it, right?” exclaimed Leny Álvarez, a young returnee migrant born in Mexico and raised in Florida. This phrase reflects one…

What Two Can Do

English + Español
The majority of the world’s population speaks more than one language. That means, normally, that people communicate through two or more codes to construct complex world views…

Cruzando My Own River

English + Español
Soy hijo de un Indio Chichimeca y una mujer tan blanca que people mistook her for a gringa…

Weaving Lessons

English + Español
Alonso’s mother is hovering over me. Occasionally she takes over, showing by example, counting out each thread, “p’ej” (one), then “cheb… oxeb…” I want to see the whole pattern laid out before…

Teaching Spanish to Latinx Youth in the United States

English + Español
Frustration and concern could be heard clearly in my friend Sara’s voice, “María Luisa, please, I need you to tutor Juan Pablo. He just flunked his Spanish test.” To fail a Spanish test—or any test…

Studying the Languages of the Andes

As a young student, I was quite determined to do research in South America. (I am not sure why, but it may have to do with the fact that I was born in the mining region of Bolivia, where my father…

Quechua-Spanish Bilinguals

English + Español
Quechua, a 1000-year-old indigenous language, is an official language of Peru. One out of every nine Peruvians speaks the language. In the rural areas, the figure soars to six out of every ten…

Indigenous Movements in Ecuador

English + Español
In October of 2019, Ecuador was thrust into the international spotlight. For nearly two weeks, a multitude of protesters in the capital of Quito demanded that President Lenín Moreno repeal…

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