MNSU Ethnic Studies Book Report

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Humanities

Minnesota State University Mankato

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You are to provide a 3-4 page  (Typed, Times New Roman, 12 pt. font, Double-spaced) critique including  your opinion in the conclusion section.

  • Introduction 1 page 
  • Literature review 2 pages
  • Theoretical framework 1 page (if any were used)
  • Methodology 1 page

Significance to the field (1-2 paragraphs) (Your opinion based upon the reading

also these questions might helps too :

  • The  author discusses linguistic capital and the way students were using by  translating poetry from Spanish into English and writing music lyrics.  Think back to your childhood education, did your teachers use linguistic  capital, if so how? 
  • What are some examples of capital that you  have personally experienced in your experiences with language, literacy  and/or school?
  • What are some pro’s and/or cons of living as a  transfronterizx (living in between two worlds)? How do you think this  affects transfronterizx student’s education?
  • Depending on where  you are at and who you are with, does your use of language change or  does it always stay the same? In what ways do you adapt your language to  the social setting you are in? Why so?
  • Why do you think the one-way and two-way immersion programs work better than the other bilingual programs?
  • From the narratives of the transfronterizx students, which one did you find most impactful and why?

I will attach the book with the attachments ( please read from intro to ch 5 )

Unformatted Attachment Preview

Educating Across Borders Educating Across Borders The Case of a Dual Language Program on the U.S.-Mexico Border María Teresa de la Piedra, Blanca Araujo, and Alberto Esquinca Foreword by Concha Delgado Gaitan The University of Arizona Press www.uapress.arizona.edu © 2018 by The Arizona Board of Regents All rights reserved. Published 2018 ISBN-13: 978-0-8165-3847-8 (paper) Cover design by Lisa Force Cover photo by Samat K. Jain Publication of this book made possible in part by funding from the University of Texas at El Paso Department of Teacher Education, and by the proceeds of a permanent endowment created with the assistance of a Challenge Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, a federal agency. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data are available at the Library of Congress. Printed in the United States of America ♾ This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper). Contents Foreword by Concha Delgado Gaitan Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Theoretical Frameworks to Understand the Transfronterizx Experience 2. Sociocultural Perspectives on Learning in Dual Language Settings 3. Conducting Research on the U.S.-Mexico Border 4. Stories of Transfronterizx Experience 5. Language and Literacies Crossing Borders 6. Making Connections: Recontextualizing for Academic Writing 7. Translanguaging: Access to Science Discourse 8. Multimodality as a Resource for the Social Organization of Learning 9. Understanding, Valuing, and Modeling Transfronterizx Funds of Knowledge Conclusion: Transfronterizx Practices as Generative Spaces Appendix: Methods References Index Foreword Daily news reports about immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border project an image of a narrow territory between the two countries, leaving most people ignorant about the lives of the people that live on both sides of that strip of land called the border. Gloria Anzaldúa writes that “To live in the Borderlands means you / are neither hispana india negra española / ni gabacha, eres mestiza, mulata, half-breed / caught in the crossfire between camps / while carrying all five races on your back / not knowing which side to turn to, run from . . . To survive the Borderlands / you must live sin fronteras / be a crossroads.” The transfronterizx construct, in this book, illustrates how the languages and ethnicities merge through daily interactions across the U.S.-Mexico border. Borders are created and defined by those who stand to benefit most by the demarcations. A case in point is the immigration debate, which divides us by political and legal borders. These challenging and engaging times also provoke us to cross the barriers of culture and consciousness. We assume positions as “us” and “the other” while we find comfort in the fact that voiceless communities transact and experience their value. Transfronterizx stories of students, teachers, and school leaders in the Border Elementary School (BES) bring to light insightful issues of daily life on the border. The authors utilize dual language practices and funds of knowledge tools to theorize on the linguistic portrait created by bordercrossing. The uniqueness of this book is that the linguistic and cultural transfronterizx community commonly known as the border exists against the backdrop of a mostly bilingual militarized El Paso border. Nearly twenty thousand agents patrol the seven hundred miles of the border by air surveillance and other electronics. And yet life moves along day after day. Every morning one can awaken to traffic reports on the three main bridges that connect El Paso with Ciudad Juárez. Businesspeople cross these bridges; they are engaged in international commerce. Thousands of transfronterizx students also cross every morning; among them are students such as Gabriela 1 and her classmates. During a fifth grade history assignment, the teacher gave the class roles to play depicting a period of history known as the Great Famine. Gabriela and her team brought their home practices to school. Students included a remote control during the multimodal role-play so that they could forward, rewind, pause, and repeat small segments in their presentation. This part of their performance was based on their home practice of reading Mexican newspaper comics at home. The digital transfronterizx literacies were accompanied by a discourse of words and idioms in Spanish with accents in English, which they learned from the English television program Dora the Explorer. By constructing new discourse norms in a shared space in this specific historical point in time, we learn the importance of the language of transfronterizx students as well as the relationship between the children and their teachers. Educating Across Borders is reminiscent of Ana Celia Zentella’s ethnography of the social and linguistic realities of New York Rican students and their mastery of their bilingualism and multidialectal repertoire. These linguistic abilities enable them to navigate their family networks and their antagonistic cultural environment outside the home. I worked closely with de la Piedra, Araujo, and Esquinca at the University of Texas, El Paso, in their early careers. During that period, I became aware of their strong commitment and scholarship applied to issues in the schools. They were equally dedicated to the communities that are home to the families of the transfronterizx students. Throughout the book, we follow the authors’ hearts into the dual language worlds that transfronterizx students embrace. Not only are the authors theoretically engaged with the concept of transfronterizx, but they are also embedded in the communities of the young people whose stories help us to understand the linguistic dynamics of the students who reside in the U.S.-Mexico region that most people know as “the border.” Concha Delgado Gaitan 1. Anzaldúa, Gloria. 1999. Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco: Aunte Lute, 194–95. Acknowledgments We feel truly grateful for the opportunity to write this book about the language and literacy practices on the U.S.-Mexico border from this beautiful desert we call home. We would like to thank the teachers and leaders of Border Elementary School (BES), who welcomed us with openness, interest, and cariño. Ms. Ornelas, in particular, was not only an inspiring participant in our study, but a colleague who thought with us about language, knowledge, and learning. A los chicos de 4to, 5to, y 6to grado del programa dual, mil gracias por darnos sus sonrisas, su calidez, y su tiempo. It was humbling to learn about your lives and your resilience. We wish to thank Concha Delgado Gaitan for her friendship and mentorship. She worked with the three of us when we started as assistant professors at the University of Texas at El Paso. Her consejo helped us grow as Latinx scholars. It is a great honor to have her words as the foreword to our work. We would like to thank colleagues who have read parts of this book as members of our writing group and colleagues: Erika Mein, Aurolyn Luykx, Zulma Méndez, Amy Bach, and Katherine Mortimer. We are also grateful to our students: Mayra Ortiz Galarza, Diana Camberos, and Betina Valdez. También agradecemos a Ricardo Vásquez por ayudarnos con la edición del texto en español. Finally, we are grateful to the blind reviewers for valuable insights that allowed us to improve our work. *** Gracias a mis co-autores, colegas y amigos, Blanca y Alberto, con quienes hemos compartido los últimos ocho años en este proyecto colectivo, y los últimos dos de intenso trabajo de escritura. Blanquita, tu cariño y disposición fueron muy importantes en este proceso, y Alberto, tus comentarios y preguntas nos ayudaron a pensar los datos desde distintas perspectivas. A mis padres, Teresa Schroth y Alberto de la Piedra, gracias por su apoyo y amor constante. ¡Gracias por creer en mí y apoyar mi sueño de ser antropóloga aun cuando muchos me trataban de convencer de dejarlo! Gracias por su paciencia y enseñanzas, siempre. A mi esposa Verónica Gallegos, gracias por tu compañía y por leer varios borradores de este y otros proyectos. Gracias por entender mis ausencias para terminar este primer libro y siempre estar dispuesta a acompañarme para descansar después de largas horas de trabajo. A mis dos chiquitos, que ya no lo son más, Nicolás Hernández y Lucía Hernández, gracias por su paciencia y comprensión cuando los dejé de lado por “el tenure” y, recientemente, por “el libro.” A Nicolás, gracias por editar el libro, porque todavía necesito ayuda con el inglés y tú lo escribes con mucha facilidad. A Lucía, gracias por hacerme tecitos cuando no me sentía bien pero igual tenía que trabajar. I am genuinely grateful to be surrounded by generous friends, family, and colleagues. —María Teresa (Mayte) de la Piedra *** My extreme gratitude to all the students and teachers at BES who welcomed us in their school. To all my friends and colegas who provided feedback and insight. A mi familia, en especial en memoria de mi papá, quien también fue transfronterizo. —Blanca Araujo *** A los que cambian muros por puentes A los estudiantes que cruzan todo tipo de puentes para llegar a estudiar A las maestras que crean puentes de entendimiento para sus estudiantes A todos las amigas y amigos que alguna vez me acompañaron en el cruce A mi madre, que me enseñó a leer (en) el Puente Libre —Alberto Esquinca Educating Across Borders Introduction This book focuses on a three-year ethnographic study of transfronterizx (border-crossing) students conducted by a team of researchers in a dual language (DL) program at Border Elementary School (BES) on the U.S.Mexico border. We are glad we can share the students’, teachers’, and administrators’ stories as transfronterizxs and analyze how these educational agents experienced daily border-crossings and life on the border in general. The ethnography conducted responds to a broad question: “What tools do transnational students use to navigate U.S. schools?” This inquiry brings new insight into our specific research interests. In this book, we center on language practices, as well as the particular kinds of knowledge that transfronterizx students used as learning resources to navigate the DL program at BES. This school was located just a few minutes from the river that forms the border between the United States and Mexico. This river is called the Rio Grande in the United States and known as the Río Bravo in Mexico. Transfronterizx students enrolled in BES could, and often did, walk just a few blocks and cross the bridge between these two nations. The two-thousand-mile line that divides the United States and Mexico is the place where the Global North and South meet. El Paso and Ciudad Juárez are considered sister cities by virtue of the social, cultural, economic, and ecological interdependence tying both cities. In total, there are about 2.5 million residents in the Ciudad Juárez / El Paso border region. Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, is currently considered one of the five most dangerous and militarized cities in Mexico. Furthermore, Ciudad Juárez was considered the most dangerous city in the world in 2008 because of the high levels of murders related to organized crime and femicide. Ironically, the city of El Paso—with close to one million inhabitants—is considered one of the safest and least violent cities in the United States. All this occurred in the context of the drug war between cartels that skyrocketed between 2008 and 2015. El Paso has its share of the militarization of the border, with twenty thousand patrol agents, frequent arrests and deportation of “undocumented 1 immigrants,” and electronic and air surveillance practices (Heyman 2015). El Muro de la Vergüenza (the Wall of Shame), spanning seven hundred miles, is part of the growing surveillance practices deployed to stop Mexican nationals from crossing this border. Context influences not only the research we conduct but also who we are as researchers. Our context is particular. We live on the U.S. side of this border, in “el otro lado.” Nonetheless, we see, breathe, and listen to Ciudad Juárez. We see Juárez from our office windows and our backyards. We smell the Mexican food when we walk our streets, in our homes and restaurants. Stores smell of Fabuloso while the clothes of our students smell like Suavitel. We hear and speak the Spanish language every day in a great variety of contexts, including, of course, the corridos (Mexican folk ballads), rancheras (Mexican folk songs), and baladas (ballads) that fill the air and our hearts in stores, in cars, and on the streets. The violence that occurred during the last decade touched us in many ways, as did the transfronterizx students in these pages. This context colors our ethnographic work. The border holds special places in our hearts and lives. The three authors are transfronterizxs in different ways; our positionalities explain our interests in the topic of transfronterizx education, our ways of approaching the research, and the ways the research participants related to us. In many ways, we were insiders and shared many of the experiences of the transfronterizx students, like our bilingualism and biliteracy, our experiences as members of a minoritized group, and our experience of immigration (de la Piedra and Esquinca) and belonging to a working-class family (Araujo). However, we were also outsiders, who tried to learn from these experiences. Our privileges as college professors who had an office in el otro lado (the other side), who moved comfortably in the English-dominated world of academia and the university, and who had the privilege of deciding if and when we wanted to cross the border, describe some of the crucial differences between our transfronterizx experience and that of the research participants. When we started our fieldwork in 2009, we set out to understand the lives of transfronterizx students who were immigrating by the thousands in the unique linguistic and cultural landscape of the border. We observed the flows of students and the different ways schools met these students, sometimes with welcoming abrazos (hugs), but mostly with misunderstanding, discrimination, and frustration. Thus, we decided to focus on a school that 2 had sizable numbers of transfronterizxs, that was close to one of the crossing points (“el puente,” or “the bridge”), and that offered DL education. We wondered if the DL program would be a learning context where transfronterizx students could use their language and funds of knowledge for academic purposes. Previous studies document that transnational students and their experiences are mostly invisible in U.S. schools (Cline and Necochea 2006; Conteh and Riasat 2014; Gallo and Link 2015; Mangual, Suh, and Byrnes 2015), as well as in schools in other countries, in particular in Mexican schools (Franco 2014; Hamann, Zúñiga, and García 2008; Leco 2006; Sánchez and Zúñiga 2010; Zúñiga 2013). Although our research focuses on one kind of transnational experience, the transnational experience on the El Paso–Ciudad Juárez border, we draw from the prior literature of transnationalism and education, which provides background about the lives and schooling of transnationals in general. The students in this ethnographic study navigate two countries, two languages, and two homes on a weekly and sometimes daily basis. By focusing on transfronterizxs, we highlight the intensity of the border-crossings that take place along the geographical and cultural border that both unites and divides the United States and Mexico. An invisible line that exists on a map with tangible implications for the lives that take place around it, la frontera (the border) is a fascinating context in which to research issues related to Spanish-English biliteracy and multilingualism. The transfronterizx experience allows us to highlight the complexities of language, literacy, and identity on the border, while complicating binaries such as global and local, micro and macro, and sending and host community. In this way, we expand the enterprise initiated by scholars of transnationalism and education (Hamann, Zuñiga, and García 2008; Orellana et al. 2001; Sánchez 2007). This ethnography contributes to this emerging and timely research literature by documenting and analyzing the practices that transfronterizx students engage in which are a result of the relationships they keep on both sides of the border, through their intense daily contacts. The transfronterizx experience itself questions binaries, as transfronterizxs’ lives themselves are in constant movement, back and forth. The DL program at the research site allowed exciting and productive border-crossings concerning knowledge, language, and literacy practices. Thus, with this book we also contribute to the field of DL education. In general, researchers have demonstrated higher academic and linguistic gains for emergent bilinguals who attend one- and two-way immersion programs rather than other program models, such as the transitional bilingual education model or English-only (Lindholm-Leary and Genesee 2014; Thomas and Collier 2002). This is true for both native English speakers and native speakers of another language. In particular, research shows that two-way immersion programs provide a context where students have the opportunity to learn each other’s languages and literacy practices while building positive intergroup social relationships (Christian 1994; de Jong and Howard 2009). Nevertheless, there are also critical perspectives on DL programs which caution us that they may also serve to reinforce the privileges of native English speakers (Valdés 1997), as well as those who enjoy white racial privilege and wealth (Valdez, Freire, and Delavan 2016). These programs might also, paradoxically, foment negative perceptions of minority languages (Durán and Palmer 2013). Thus, DL programs may also be a space of reproduction of privilege for the already privileged and of discrimination for emergent bilinguals. For example, in her article about dual immersion programs, Valdés (1997) offers us a cautionary perspective on the low quality of native language instruction, the inequalities of English and Spanish speakers in these programs, and the reproduction of power relationships between the two languages and those who speak them. In particular, Valdés refers to the unequal power relations among the two main groups of students in the DL immersion program she studied: middle-class Euro-American students and low-income Mexican origin students. However, we argue that the program we studied—which included both one-way and two-way DL programs—is not one that reproduces the privilege of Anglo-Americans, the middle class, or English speakers. In this program, almost 100 percent of students were Mexican or Mexican-Americans, and the community served low-income families. Thus, the DL program described here includes “the disempowered socioeconomic groups” (Hossain and Pratt 2008, 69) within the Spanish-speaker language group in the United States. Besides, the majority of English-dominant students were Mexican-American students raised in homes where adult family members spoke Spanish or both languages. More recently, some studies have provided details on the productive uses of language, literacy, and cultural practices in DL programs (de Jong 2016; Henderson and Palmer 2015; Poza 2016; Sayer 2013). These studies question 3 4 the “ideal” model of DL programs as spaces where two languages are equally distributed over time and where the program population is characterized by an equally “ideal” distribution of the target population of fifty-fifty. These studies question these ideals by documenting the actual bilingual proficiencies and hybrid language practices in the classrooms. Findings of the research presented in this book contribute to the literature on hybridity since it questions artificially created and neat language distributions, and it documents the language and literacy practices of transfronterizxs, a constantly mobile population that crosses national (and other) borders. In a world dominated by monoglossic notions that privilege English over any different language, as well as ethnocentrism that privileges mainstream practices over practices of minoritized groups, documenting rich transfronterizx language and literacy practices is crucial to counter entrenched deficit perspectives about transfronterizx and other transnational students. This study contributes to developing a theory to understand the physical and metaphorical border-crossings of linguistic and ethnic minoritized students in U.S. schools. We base our analyses on extensive ethnographic research, during which we collected data through participant observation in classrooms and other school settings, focus group interviews with transfronterizx students, and individual interviews with teachers, administrators, and staff members. Thus, first and foremost, this book is informed by the voices of the transfronterizx students that talked to us and shared their views and experiences, as well as the voices of the teachers (Ms. Ornelas, in particular) and administrators. Our perspectives as transfronterizxs and residents of this border also inform this book, as well as our experiences as teacher educators and researchers of language and literacy practices in Mexican immigrant communities. Chapter 1 introduces relevant literature and critical concepts for understanding the transfronterizx experience. We draw on research on immigration and education, transnationalism, and transnational students to situate the broader context of transfronterizxs in schools. Also, we discuss theoretical constructs that allow us to understand transfronterizxs, such as simultaneity (Levitt and Glick Schiller 2004), border thinking/gnosis (Mignolo 2000), and border theory (Anzaldúa 1999; Vila 2000). In this chapter, we start to develop the most significant theoretical frameworks we used to make sense of the findings of this ethnography. Chapter 2 continues the discussion of relevant literature and theoretical frameworks. Here we discuss concepts key to understanding the transfronterizx experience with language, literacy, and identity in academic settings. We introduce sociocultural perspectives on language and literacy studies, including the New Literacy Studies (Barton and Hamilton 2005; Gee 2000; Kalman and Street 2013; Street 1984), the notions of recontextualization and translanguaging practices (García 2009), and research in DL programs. Chapter 3 introduces the researchers and the research setting. It starts with the introduction of the researchers and our positionalities as primary instruments of this ethnography. Then we introduce the El Paso–Ciudad Juárez border as the context of this study, as well as crucial information about the social, cultural, and linguistic context. We also include descriptions of the school, the DL program, and the participants. In chapter 4, we present an in-depth description of the transfronterizx experiences and stories. The U.S.-Mexico border region is a unique context in which different cultures and languages blend. Transfronterizxs’ lives take place in two countries and two languages. Maintaining constant contact with both sides of the border influences the experiences and identities of transfronterizxs. The purpose of this chapter is to present the stories of the transfronterizx experience in the school community: principals, teachers, and families. Through these narratives, we analyze the discourses that construct the transfronterizx experience and context in which the practices discussed in the subsequent chapters will be situated. Chapter 5 addresses the transfronterizx literacies. Research on transnational literacies has focused on youth who live in one country and communicate using digital literacies across national boundaries. This chapter describes the literacies that these transfronterizx youth acquire as bordercrossers. Our focus is on the print and digital literacies learned outside of the classroom and how the students are using these in academic settings. Chapter 6 continues with the topic of transfronterizx literacies; however, in this section, we emphasize how students used transfronterizx literacies for academic purposes, particularly in the language arts classroom. We illustrate how transfronterizx texts and experiences are used for academic purposes, in particular in the context of learning narrative writing. We present the case of one transfronterizx teacher who successfully facilitated literacies crossing many borders. Drawing on the continua of biliteracy model and the New Literacy Studies perspective, we show the recontextualization of texts and practices. These processes help us understand biliteracy development in this border area, which is both global and local. Chapter 7 analyzes meaning-making practices in a fourth grade two-way dual language classroom. We show how emergent bilingual learners and their teacher participate in activities that mediate understanding of science content knowledge. The teacher creates a borderland space in which the full repertoire of students’ languages, including translanguaging, is recognized and validated. We illustrate how the teacher guides students to use strategies and meaning-making tools in both languages to construct meanings of the science content. We also demonstrate how she scaffolds students’ language development, develops students’ higher-order thinking, and involves all students in constructing understanding. Among the tools recent immigrant students used to navigate U.S. schools, we found multimodal literacies in two languages, Spanish and English. In chapter 8, drawing from literature on multimodality (Dicks et al. 2011; Gutiérrez et al. 2011) and recent research on translanguaging practices (García 2009), we analyze multimodal literacy events in this DL program that serves transfronterizxs. In this context, one immigrant teacher’s ideas about how to best teach literacy to emergent bilinguals and immigrant students aided her in creating an authentic learning environment. We contend that the everyday construction of “safe learning spaces” in DL classrooms through multimodal and translanguaging practices become possibilities for social change. These findings contribute to the growing conversation on how multimodal literacies challenge traditional views of literacy as isolated skills and construct safe spaces for learning. Chapter 9 discusses how young transfronterizx students bring their funds of knowledge (González, Moll, and Amanti 2005) to the classroom and use them in relevant ways to understand the content. We argue that developing awareness of how students use transfronterizx knowledge in schools can provide teachers and researchers of students in other contexts with a better, more complex understanding of the resources students bring to school to recognize ways in which to capitalize on these mobile resources for relevant educational experiences. In this chapter, we also reflect on the community cultural wealth (Yosso 2005) of transfronterizx students. Finally, we address the conclusions and implications for pedagogical practice. Results of this research challenge traditional views of language and literacy as isolated skills and allow us to theorize the transfronterizx experience in academic settings. We will summarize findings presented throughout the book. This chapter will also have the objective of synthesizing main findings concerning pedagogical practices with emergent bilinguals. 1. The term transfronterizo has been previously used by academics (Relaño Pastor 2007; Zentella 2009) and the media, such as BBC (Sparrow 2015), the Chronicle (Viren 2007), and NPR (McGee 2015). Recently, Tatyana Kleyn has used the term in her work with returnees to Mexico (Kleyn 2015; Donnellon et al. 2016). We use the gender-neutral term transfronterizx. However, students did not call themselves transfronterizxs; they identified as Mexican. 2. A flow of Mexican families went in the opposite direction from most of the country’s experience at that time to El Paso, Texas, when one million Mexicans returned from the United States to Mexico from 2009 to 2014. See the documentary Una vida, dos países, or Children and Youth (Back) in Mexico (Donnellon et al. 2016) at http://www.unavidathefilm.com. 3. We use the term “emergent bilingual” (García 2009) rather than other terms, such as “English Language Learners” or “English Learners,” to avoid defining emergent bilinguals solely by their relationship to English. 4. Dual language programs vary by the languages spoken and the amount of instructional time in each language. One-way DL programs serve language minority students while two-way DL programs combine students who are learning English and students who are learning another language. The program we studied was a 90–10 DL model, rather than a 50–50 DL model, where students start in the lower grades with 90 percent of instructional time in the non-English language. 1 Theoretical Frameworks to Understand the Transfronterizx Experience The purpose of this chapter is to examine relevant literature and concepts to understand the transfronterizx experience with a particular emphasis on language, literacy, and identity in academic settings. The critical perspective of community cultural wealth (Yosso 2005) serves as the broader theoretical framework that includes the diverse forms of capital that students bring with them to school. Community cultural wealth is our starting point, as we believe the transfronterizx practices we describe here are part of the rich repertoires of practice that students have at their disposal to act in the diverse contexts they traverse. In order to analyze language use and literacies among transfronterizxs, we review literature on transnationalism and transnational students (Hamann, Zuñiga, and García 2008; Orellana et al. 2001; Sánchez 2007), border theory, border thinking, and border epistemologies (Anzaldúa 1999; Mignolo 2000; Vila 2000). These complementary bodies of literature provided the background for the study and the theoretical constructs that allowed us to analyze the unique, fluid, and complex experiences of transfronterizxs in a DL immersion program. This chapter and the next will briefly introduce related literature and theoretical frameworks; in subsequent chapters we will continue the description of these frameworks as they pertain to each topic developed in the respective chapter. Community Cultural Wealth and Transfronterizx Capital Community cultural wealth refers to the unique forms of cultural capital, resources, and assets of students of color (Villalpando and Solórzano 2005). Yosso (2005) defines community cultural wealth as the array of knowledge, skills, abilities, and contacts possessed by marginalized groups that usually are not recognized and acknowledged in schools. This perspective critiques deficit thinking and deficit structures that disadvantage communities and people of color (Contreras 2009; Jain 2010; Oropeza, Varghese, and Kanno 2010; Pérez Huber 2009; Rincón 2009; Yosso 2005). There are six categories of capital within the community cultural wealth framework. The different categories of capital utilized by communities of color to survive and resist oppression are navigational, social, resistant, linguistic, aspirational, and familial. Navigational capital is the ability to make it through social situations or move through “institutions not created with communities of color in mind” (Yosso 2005, 80). Examples include navigating through hostile universities or other institutional structures permeated by racism, such as judicial systems, healthcare facilities, and the job market. This form of capital acknowledges individual agency even within constraining situations. Social capital comprises the networks, community resources, and people that can provide support to navigate through institutions. Social capital is also utilized to get employment, health care, immigration assistance, and education. We saw both forms of capital in our study when families relied on each other to get jobs and housing. Resistant capital is the resistance to subordination by people of color. It includes legacies of communities that have resisted racism, capitalism, and other forms of subordination and forms of oppression. Resistant capital comprises various types of oppositional behavior, challenging the status quo, and transforming oppressive structures. Linguistic capital is the “intellectual and social skills attained through communicating in more than one language and/or style” (Yosso 2005, 78). Linguistic capital values the communication and language skills that students of color bring to school. It includes storytelling, cuentos (stories), dichos (sayings), and the ability to communicate through art, music, and poetry. Linguistic capital also includes drawing on different language registers and styles and translating for parents. In this study, students were using linguistic capital in many ways, such as translating poetry from Spanish into English and writing music lyrics. Aspirational capital is the “ability to maintain hopes and dreams for the future even in the face of barriers. This includes high aspirations of families for their children, resiliency through dreaming of possibilities beyond present conditions, and the nurturing of a culture of possibility” (Yosso 2005, 77). Aspirational capital is encouragement to do all the things that some members of the family and community never had the opportunity to do. In the case of the transfronterizx students, families did whatever was necessary for them to be safe and to continue in school. Familial capital is knowledge nurtured among familia (family). This form of capital includes a deep commitment and healthy connection to a community and to the extended family which may consist of abuelos (grandparents), amigos (friends), tíos (aunts and uncles), primos (cousins), and compadres. In this study, these networks developed in both nations, Mexico and the United States. Familial capital can be fostered through many social events, settings, and models, such as caring, coping, and providing. Familial capital includes family lessons that help shape one emotionally and give moral guidance (Yosso 2006). Familial capital is being committed and maintaining healthy connections to the community. This commitment allows people to realize that they are not alone in situations. During our study, we experienced families sending their children to live in El Paso with relatives to keep them safe from the violence in Juárez. Families in El Paso were making sure the children were safe and had a place to stay. These acts demonstrate how extended families were committed to children being and feeling safe. As presented in chapter 4, transfronterizx children also committed to helping parents to “arreglar” (arrange or fix) their immigration status. These forms of capital build on one another as cultural wealth, are strongly related, and overlap. Through an analysis of the data, it was evident that the participants in our study demonstrated the use of several forms of capital in their experiences with language, literacy, and school. When these kinds of capital were related to crossing borders, both physical as well as metaphorical borders, we called it transfronterizx capital. 1 Transnationalism and Transnational Practices from Below The term transnationalism has been used in different fields, with particular emphasis on the flows of capital, goods, services, and labor that transcends national boundaries. Literature about the economics of labor migration, remittances, transnational corporations, and international trade emphasizes the cross-border flows of capital and goods. Transnationalism also implies the movement of people across national borders. “Transnationalism involves individuals, their networks of social relations, their communities, and broader institutionalized structures such as local and national governments” (Portes, Guarnizo, and Landolt 1999, 220). Research on transnationalism initially focused on international enterprises, systems, organizations, and associations; however, studies paid less attention to the private sphere (Sánchez and Machado-Casas 2009) of transnationalism and its everyday practices, which are also manifestations of globalization. Transnational practices are defined as “the political, economic, social, and cultural processes occurring beyond the borders of a particular state, including actors that are not states but that are influenced by the policies and institutional arrangements associated with states” (Levitt 2001, 202). These everyday transnational practices “from below” (Smith and Guarnizo 1998)— including language and literacy practices such as the ones described here— were a response to the global institutional contexts of transnationalism imposed by governmental policies and “dependent capitalism fostered on weaker countries” (Portes, Guarnizo, and Landolt 1999, 220). Transnational practices “from below” are both local and global, in that they are local responses to political and economic policies with global impacts beyond the local community. Practices from below are tied to social relationships and issues of power and become important tools to survive and resist oppression. Portes, Guarnizo, and Landolt (1999) noted the need to engage in research that understood the reaction of everyday transnationals to these policies and their larger geopolitical, economic, and social contexts: “These activities commonly developed in reaction to governmental policies and to the condition of dependent capitalism fostered on weaker countries, as immigrants and their families sought to circumvent the permanent subordination to which these conditions condemn them” (220). In other words, everyday transnational practices from below are a response to global institutional contexts of transnationalism, which place transnationals in a situation of subordination. Transnationals develop these practices “from below” as survival mechanisms and as a response to situations of marginalization experienced from below. Thus, we posit that transnational practices are part of transnationals’ community cultural wealth (Yosso 2005) that is the “array of knowledge, skills, abilities, and contacts possessed and utilized by Communities of Color to survive and resist macro and micro . . . forms of oppression” (Yosso 2005, 77). The technological advancement in communication and transport technologies of the last decades made transnational practices “from below” (Smith and Guarnizo 1998) or “grassroots” transnationalism possible. These technologies have not only made communications across borders constant and fluid but also have brought new practices tied to these intense communications. In 1999, Portes, Guarnizo, and Landolt described “the ready availability of air transport, long-distance telephone, facsimile communication, and electronic mail” as providing the “technological basis for the emergence of transnationalism on a mass scale” (223). Technologies are space- and time-compressing (Harvey 1990); thus, they are necessary conditions for transnationalism (Portes, Guarnizo, and Landolt 1999). Today, the space- and time-compressing circumstances are even more evident with newer technologies that include chat rooms, games, Skype, and instant messaging. Then the world experiences an even larger transnationalism phenomenon. Individuals and their social networks and communities have appropriated these tools and engaged in a wide variety of learning activities both in and out of school contexts. Thus, these actions may or may not be institutionalized, but they all involve learning and language use. In this book, we focus on the language and literacy learning tied to transnational activities “from below”—that is, activities that are organized by individual transnational persons. We focus on the movement of people, their practices, “and more abstract items, such as information, advice, care, love, and systems of power” (Sánchez and Machado-Casas 2009) across nations. To understand these practices, like Portes, Guarnizo, and Landolt (1999), we “delimit the concept of transnationalism to occupations and activities that require regular and sustained social contacts over time across national borders for their implementation” (219). Within these activities, language, literacy, and educational practices—the focus of this book—have been understudied (Sánchez and Machado-Casas 2009). Simultaneity Within the field of immigration, a close look at the literature of immigrant children during the last decades of the twentieth century reveals a notion of immigrants and immigrant families that saw a linear process in their trajectory, from the “country of origin” to the “host country.” This notion assumed that immigrant families moved to the United States and settled, ignoring that most maintained frequent contacts with their countries of origin. During the last couple of decades, there has been a “transnational turn” (Lam and Warriner 2012) in immigration research, which considers these complex lives of immigrants. We follow Henry Trueba’s distinction between the concepts of immigrant and transnational: Conceptually, the main difference between an immigrant and a transnational person is that the immigrant does not have frequent and intensive contact with his original culture and consequently can eventually lose his home language and culture and assimilate to the mainstream society. A transnational person cannot afford to lose his language and culture because his contact with the home culture is frequent and intensive . . . [and] goes back and forth between the country of origin or residence and another country. (Trueba 2004, 40) Ethnographic studies with immigrant families offered a critique of these limited views, revealing, for instance, that transnational practices have become a regular part of life (Orellana et al. 2001). These practices are acquired and moved through transnational social networks. Furthermore, “networks are both a medium and an outcome of social practices ‘from below’ by which transnational migrants, individually and collectively, maintain meaningful social relations that cut across territorial boundaries, link several localities in more than one country, and extend meaningful social action across geographical space” (Smith 1994, 20). Thus, transnational networks and transnational social practices are an intricate part of the daily lives of immigrants. Furthermore, many of these families live in “a state of ‘betweenness,’ orchestrating their lives transnationally and bifocally” (Smith 1994, 20). Even though we draw from an important body of literature that proposes the term “immigrant” for this literature review, we will use the term “transnational” to include the diverse kinds of migrants who still have contacts, relationships, practices, and other types of interactions with people, businesses, institutions, and places across national boundaries. In general terms, transnationals are persons who live in and belong to two or more countries at the same time. In their work on simultaneity, Levitt and Glick Schiller (2004) define that notion as living life “that incorporates daily activities, routines, and institutions located both in a destination country and transnationally” (1003). This idea allows for broader analytic lenses that enable capturing the complex realities of transnationals, which are “often embedded in multilayered, multi-sited, transnational social fields, encompassing those who move and those who stay behind” (Levitt and Glick Schiller 2004, 1003). We draw on the concept of simultaneity to understand how transfronterizxs are embedded in transnational social fields which function to mobilize knowledge and texts across national boundaries. We adopt Levitt and Glick Schiller’s (2004) proposal that to understand the transnational experience it is important to capture “the experience of living simultaneously within and beyond the boundaries of a nation-state” (Levitt and Glick Schiller 2004, 1006). Participants of the present study crossed many borders both physically and metaphorically. The youth described here are transnational “in that they have moved bodily across national borders while maintaining and cultivating practices tied—in varying degrees—to their home countries” (Hornberger 2007, 325). However, because they live on the border between two countries, transfronterizxs have a unique experience of crossing borders, as will be developed in the following sections. Transnational Students Definitions As the notion of superdiversity (Vertovec 2007) suggests, at this moment in history we witness “a tremendous increase in the categories of migrant” (Blommaert and Rampton 2016, 21). Because of the heterogeneity of the transnational experiences, there are several distinct definitions of transnational education and transnational students in the literature. A significant number of studies focus on transnational students in higher education (Soong 2015; Robertson 2013; Wallace 2016; Wilkins and Urbanovic 2014). This literature examines the education-migration nexus and its complexities, focusing mostly on students who have lived their whole lives in one country and travel to another country to attend higher education, most of the time as young adults or adults. For example, Poyago-Theotoky and Tampieri (2016) define transnational education as the education offered by an institution for students from different countries. Transnational students in higher education are also called international students. Most of these students are privileged in several senses. The fact that they can study abroad says that most have had high levels of education in their countries of origin, as well as the economic means to leave their countries and arrive in the country where they attend college. This is significantly different from the transfronterizx students who participated in this study. The students in our study are not elite international students but are refugees fleeing economic and violent insecurity. Researchers also focus on transnational students and their experiences in K–12 U.S. or other nations’ public school settings. These are also a heterogeneous group of students with a diversity of backgrounds. In general, transnational students are those students who have affiliations in schools in two countries and build cultural roots in both contexts (Franco 2014; Sánchez and Zúñiga 2010; Vázquez and Hernández 2014; Zúñiga, Hamann, and Sánchez 2008). Transnational students lead lives immersed in two different countries. These students are immigrants themselves or have one or two immigrant parents, and as a family, they remain connected to both their new country of settlement and their country of origin. Transnational students have experiences, perceptions, and social relationships that span two nations and may be entirely different from those of the “traditional” immigrant. In fact, many transnational students may forego some of the normal life experiences of immigrants and live comfortably for years between two countries and two cultures. Some transnational students, however, do not differ markedly from immigrant students and may gradually adopt life patterns associated with being immigrants. (Sánchez 2008, 857) Within the umbrella term of transnationals, scholars have used several terms to capture these experiences, such as transmigrant, binationals, retornos (returns), or migrantes retornados (returned migrants), and transfronterizxs. The multiplicity of terms reflects the diversity among transnationals. For example, transnational students may be students attending school in the United States and who visit their country of origin for short periods of time, such as during the summer (Sánchez 2007). Other students have attended U.S. schools but returned to live in their country of origin—in this case, Mexico—due to repatriation or economic reasons (Hamann, Zuñiga, and García 2008; Jacobo-Suárez 2017; Sánchez and Zúñiga 2010; Zúñiga 2013). These students are called “retornos” or “retornados” (returned migrants) (Petrón 2009). The term “transmigrant students” has been used to describe migrant students who are in one country temporarily only as part of their journey to another country. These students generally do not have longterm lives in any of the places they inhabit, frequently following their parents in their journey searching for work opportunities (Bantman-Masum 2015; Gnam 2013; Prickett, Negi, and Gómez 2012). Literature includes “emotional transnationalism” (Wolf 2002), a term used to describe students who may have never set foot in another country; however, their everyday lives incorporate values, goods, and practices from that country. Undocumented students in the United States may also be considered part of the group that experiences emotional transnationalism. Researchers have also paid attention to the unique lives of indigenous transnationals (Machado-Casas 2009; Stephen 2007). Referring to the U.S.-Mexico border, Monty (2015) used the term “transnational students” to identify Mexican students who live on the border and study in the United States but go back to Mexico for diverse reasons during the semester. de la Piedra and Araujo (2012a) initially referred to transnationals on the border as cross-border transnationals; however, in later publications, they used the term transfronterizxs. Although diverse, in general terms “transnational students lead lives immersed in two different countries . . . [and] have experiences, perceptions, and social relationships that span two nations” (Sánchez 2008, 857). The literature shows that transnational migration principally impacts economically disadvantaged students who attend U.S. schools, and who deserve an educational system that understands and values them. 2 Transfronterizx Students Within the umbrella concept of transnational students, we locate transfronterizxs (Relaño Pastor 2007; Zentella 2009), who deserve a particular term because of the unique experiences of transnationalism that occur on the border between the United States and Mexico. Transfronterizxs are border-crossers who live and study on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, often crossing on a daily or weekly basis. They may have spent years going back and forth between both countries (Zentella 2009). The concept of transfronterizx students is different from transnational students in that the contacts between two countries and across borders are more intense and engaged in an embodied experience. In other words, transfronterizxs physically cross the bridge between two countries. In the U.S. Southwest, this back-and-forth movement has characterized the communication and population movement since the Mesoamerican Age (Vélez-Ibáñez 1996). These contacts take place often, sometimes the same day or the same week, and entail back-and-forth movement from one country to another. After the space- and time-compressing technologies, a second necessary condition, according to Portes, Guarnizo, and Landolt (1999), for transnationalism is the creation of networks across space. We posit that transfronterizxs are in a better position than other transnationals to initiate cross-border activities because of the closeness between the United States and Mexico. Because of the geographical location, most transfronterizxs have a “dense network of communications” (Portes, Guarnizo, and Landolt 1999, 224) across the border. Transfronterizxs “are from acá y allá [from here and from there], actively transcending borders and fronteras” (Relaño Pastor 2007, 275). In the case of transnationals who do not live on the border, it seems that the greater the access “to space- and time-compressing technology, the greater the frequency and scope of this sort of [transnational] activity. Immigrant communities with greater average economic resources and human capital (educational and professional skills) should register higher levels of transnationalism because of their superior access to the infrastructure that makes these activities possible” (Portes, Guarnizo, and Landolt 1999, 224). However, because of transfronterizxs’ unique geopolitical situation, unlike other transnationals, they do not need high economic capital to engage in transnational activities, as they may cross the bridge by walking or driving. Granted, compared to other fronterizxs who do not have the privilege of crossing the border (Lugo 2008), transfronterizxs do have the opportunity of mobility across the national border, as well as the privilege of having U.S. citizenship or permanent U.S. residence (Bejarano 2010). Some transfronterizxs belong to middle-class or privileged families, but most of the participants of this study were members of working-class families and experienced marginalization from U.S. mainstream culture. The binational context of transfronterizxs’ lives is not the only element that makes their transnational practices unique. The border is a marginalized and complicated context on both sides of the border, and students learn to navigate this complicated context. “In El Paso, the unemployment rates are twice the state and national average, and per capita income is two times lower than the national average” (Moya and Lusk 2009, 49). Although attractive for labor possibilities and a growing city, Ciudad Juárez was hit with violence, militarization, and a history of colonial relationships with the United States. Thus, the marginalized space of the border characterized by coloniality (Cervantes-Soon and Carrillo 2016) colors the transfronterizxs’ transnational experience. Transfronterizxs experience daily surveillance where boundary reinforcers (Bejarano 2010, 392)—that is, checkpoint border patrol agents, teachers, students, administrators, and school staff—“judge, assess, surveil, and ‘inspect’ them as ‘aliens’ or who have ‘illegally’ crossed” (Bejarano 2010, 392) into U.S. or school territory. Literature on border theory (Anzaldúa 1999; Vila 2000) and Mignolo’s ideas of border thinking (2000) add to the definition of transnationalism to explain this experience on the border “where colonial difference is embodied and experienced in the literal demarcation and crossing of international boundaries” (Cervantes-Soon and Carrillo 2016, 282). “‘Borders’ are not only geographic but also political, subjective (e.g., cultural) and epistemic and, contrary to frontiers, the very concept of ‘border’ implies the existence of people, languages, religions, and knowledge on both sides linked through relations established by coloniality of power” (Mignolo and Tlostanova 2006, 208). Transfronterizxs experience the border as a tangible national border as well as borders that are less tangible, such as linguistic, ethnic, and schoolcommunity boundaries. Border thinking (Anzaldúa 1999; Michaelsen and Shershow 2007; Mignolo 2000; Mignolo and Tlostanova 2006; Vázquez 2011) is the notion that our epistemological stances must have an embodied component. Transfronterizxs’ experiences with education are embodied. Border thinking also means using nondominant knowledge and languages to break through the limits of colonially instantiated educational practices. “Border thinking brings to the foreground different kinds of theoretical actors and principles of knowledge that displace European modernity . . . and empower those who have been epistemically disempowered by the theo- and ego-politics of knowledge” (Mignolo and Tlostanova 2006, 206–207). In the context of the education field, border thinking is a way to move beyond the epistemological stances of mainstream learning organization and theories. Furthermore, “epistemology is woven into language and, above all, into alphabetically written languages. And languages are not something human beings have, but they are part of what human beings are. As such, languages are embedded in the body and in the memories (geo-historically located) of each person” (Mignolo and Tlostanova 2006, 207). Transfronterizxs’ border thinking supported them to use their language—characterized by translanguaging and recontextualizing—to narrate alternative narratives or counterstories (Yosso 2006). The border’s marginalized location is also evident in the narratives about it. Outsiders conceptualize the border as a transitional space (Heyman 2013); like its name in Spanish, “El Paso” is narrated as a place of temporary residence. From a mainstream outsider’s perspective, “the only relevant persons are transitory crossers who are deemed subject to official examination and enforcement” (Heyman 2013, 62). Recently, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions came to our city and used words used to describe war zones when talking about the U.S.-Mexico border. These negative and damaging perceptions of our border perpetuate the coloniality and asymmetrical relations of power. These narratives impact daily social interactions and support the creation of exclusion. This dehumanizing perspective on the border and the stories presented in this book depict very different images of borderland residents and everyday lives. Instead of outsiders’ simplistic views of the border, border views tend to depict subtleties, complexities, and gray areas in the daily transnational practices of borderlanders (Heyman and Symons 2012). Gloria Anzaldúa (1999, 25) defines the borderland as an open wound “where the third world grates against the first and bleeds” and where the life force of two worlds merges “to form a third country—a border culture.” Thus, transfronterizxs live in “the space between two worlds” (Anzaldúa 1999, 237), which is in itself a space of change or a “third space” (Moje et al. 2004). From this space, transfronterizxs use their experiences and resources to navigate their diverse worlds. We will see in the following chapters that “the fluidity of languages and cultural milieus in which [transfronterizxs] are 3 involved every day highlight the influence of border-crossing experiences in the construction of their identity” (Relaño Pastor 2007, 264). Thus, the transfronterizx everyday experience is colored by the fluid, contradictory, and marginalized context of the border, where people are in a state of nepantla (in-between) living within and among multiple worlds (Anzaldúa 1999). The practices we analyze in this book are a product of this fluidity and also of the contradictions and subordination of the transfronterizx context. These “third spaces” (Moje et al. 2004) or “epistemic borderlands” (Cervantes-Soon and Carrillo 2016) “where the colonial/modern global design intersects with local histories” (Cervantes-Soon and Carrillo 2016, 285) are genuinely spaces of possibility for education of transfronterizx and other transnational students. Relevant Literature on Transnational Students in the United States and Mexico Demographic trends today show the importance of transnationalism in U.S. schools. Latinxs are the largest “minority” group, comprising 17.6 percent of the total U.S. population (Flores 2017) and 25.4 percent of the public school students (Geiger 2017). While 11 percent of Latinx students are foreign-born, 52 percent of U.S.-born Latinx children are “second generation” or children of immigrants (Fry and Passel 2009), and 70 percent of Latinx students speak a language other than English at home (Fry and Gonzales 2008). It is estimated that by the year 2030, 40 percent of U.S. public school students will have come from homes where the first language is not English (Howard, Levine, and Moss 2014). These numbers underscore the significant presence of both the Latinx population in U.S. schools and the transnational realities in these households. Concerning Mexican nationals, in 2011 nearly 12 million lived in the United States, and 6.3 million U.S.-born children had at least one parent born in Mexico. As transnationalism becomes more common in today’s globalized world and increasing flows of students find their way across borders, educators are struggling to understand how to meet the needs of transnational students. These students are often framed as a problem to be solved, and as lacking resources to contribute, very much like the deficit thinking perspective described by Valencia (1997). Teachers are unprepared to work with them, starting with a lack of information about what transnational students know (Cline and Necochea 2006; Gallo and Link 2015). As a result of this situation, transnational students’ particular needs are seldom reflected in the curriculum (Boske and McCormack 2011; Conteh and Riasat 2014; Knight and Oesterreich 2011; Stewart 2014). Mainstream teachers often do not acknowledge the cultural and linguistic assets transnational students bring with them to the school context, and policy makers blame students themselves for low literacy and academic performances, rather than a lack of policy that includes them (Mangual, Suh, and Byrnes 2015). Researchers have presented evidence that U.S. schools do not always construct environments conducive to the academic success of transnational students. Researchers show that Latinxs are less likely to participate in advanced level courses and Gifted and Talented programs (Ford 2010). Dramatic dropout rates for Latinx students (Noguera 2012), in particular foreign-born (National Center for Education Statistics 2010; Romo and Pérez 2012), overrepresentation in special education (Noguera 2012), and lower academic achievement rates of emergent bilinguals as compared to nonemergent bilinguals (Fry 2008) show that schools are not addressing these students’ needs or their assets. Ethnic segregation (Reardon et al. 2012) and complex relationships between U.S. schools and Spanish-speaking parents (Cavanagh, Vigil, and García 2014; Delgado-Gaitan 1990; Díez-Palomar and Civil 2007; Stromquist 2012; Valdés 1997) have been documented. In some schools nonwhite students often are ignored, resulting in what Hall (2016) called “bleaching syndrome,” in which students change their behaviors and language patterns. Jasis (2013), for example, reported segregation of Latinx students and no academic guidance. This literature shows a complex and adverse set of circumstances that contribute to the limited opportunities of quality education for linguistic minorities in the United States. Even though we are aware of the benefits of multilingualism, societies and educational systems are not doing enough to maintain transnational students’ languages. We know that the majority of immigrant families in the United States lose their native language by the third or even second generation (Rumbaut 2009). Subtractive schooling (Valenzuela 1999), school practices that not only ignore but devalue the cultural and language practices of transnational students, have been amply demonstrated by a good number of studies that document disappointing results. Researchers have documented discriminatory practices against Spanish native speakers (Cortéz and Jáuregui 2004; Petrón and Greybeck 2014; Whiteside 2006) and linguistic segregation (Gifford and Valdés 2006) in U.S. schools. For example, Conteh and Riasat (2014) show that mainstream teachers believed that using two languages is not beneficial, but on the contrary could purportedly “confuse” and “block” transnational students’ academic progress. All in all, there is still much to do to support the actual enactment of language policies that promote multilingualism and multiculturalism (Torrente 2013), as well as more inclusive relationships with transnational students and their parents (Durand 2010). In the Mexican school system, things are not much better for transnational students (Franco 2014; Hamann, Zúñiga, and García 2008; Hamann, Zúñiga, and Sánchez 2006; Sánchez and Zúñiga 2010; Zúñiga 2013). Despite Mexican federal programs specifically meant to help transnational students, the few studies that explore transnationals’ schooling experiences paint a bleak picture of Mexican schools’ preparedness to receive transnational students and their families. For many of these students, the transition is a complicated process that sometimes jeopardizes their educational success. Mexican classrooms face serious economic hardships, including lack of resources, materials, and even teachers (Franco 2014). Besides, these students are invisible or face discrimination by their teachers, classmates, and even from the educational system. Transnational students in Mexico may be children of Mexican immigrants, but they have seldom lived in Mexico for long periods of time. While their last names and physical characteristics may initially allow them to blend in with their classmates (Hamann, Zúñiga, and García 2008; Sánchez and Zúñiga 2010; Zúñiga 2013), soon after the initial impressions, mainstream Mexican students perceive and treat their transnational peers as different (Zúñiga and Hamann 2008). Transnational students were perceived as problematic, rebels, disobedient, or even potential narcos (drug dealers), who tended to establish dysfunctional relationships due to their experience in their “dislocated families” (Zúñiga, Hamann, and Sánchez 2008). Teachers and school authorities in Mexico often ignore students’ educational biographies. For example, Zúñiga (2013) describes the story of a transnational student who had been classified by a U.S. school as “gifted and talented.” However, she was labeled as “problemática” (problematic student) in a Mexican school due to her ways of “doing” school: she actively participated in class discussions and often questioned her teachers’ knowledge. Thus, Mexican teachers interpreted transnational 4 students’ behaviors from their idealized views of the “good student,” ignoring not only the students’ life experiences and funds of knowledge but also their actual abilities and skills developed and recognized in other contexts. Like the U.S. situation, mainstream teachers in Mexico are not prepared to understand transnational students’ linguistic backgrounds. Although Mexican nationals highly valued English, the transnational students’ use of English was considered a disloyalty to their country and culture. In Hamann, Zuñiga, and García’s (2008) study of teachers’ perceptions of transnational students, a prevailing belief among teachers was that no special support was needed because students could speak Spanish, thus they could incorporate and assimilate to the school context with no support from the teacher or peers. Furthermore, some teachers did not allow English spoken in their classes, which could lead to these transnational students’ English language loss (Franco 2014; Hamann, Zúñiga, and Sánchez 2006; Vázquez and Hernández 2014). Furthermore, it is easier for transnational students to use Spanish in U.S. schools than English in Mexican schools (Zúñiga and Hamann 2008). Paradoxically, transnational students were not allowed to use their Spanish in U.S. schools, and when they went back to Mexico, they were prohibited from using English in the Mexican school. Students experienced these contradicting messages about language in their everyday practices in academic settings in both countries. This situation may have terrible consequences for students’ academic identities, their language and biliteracy development, and their academic success. In sum, from this literature review about transnational students’ schooling in both the United States and Mexico, we conclude that many transnational students face a complex trajectory in their education compounded by the limited opportunities of relevant education for linguistic minorities in both countries. There is still much to do to support inclusive instructional practices and relationships with and for transnational students, their families, and their communities. The transfronterizx everyday experience documented and analyzed in this book—colored by the fluid, contradictory, and marginalized context of the border—shows how these students use their experiences and resources to navigate their complex worlds. From the perspective of the historically subalternized borderlands (Cervantes-Soon and Carrillo 2016), we analyze the language and literacy practices which are part of the repertoire of transfronterizx community cultural wealth (Yosso 2005). Practices analyzed in this book show the integration of linguistic, navigational, resistant, familial, social, and aspirational capitals (Yosso 2002) of transfronterizxs. The DL program, as well as the teachers’ and school leaders’ understandings of the transfronterizxs’ lives and funds of knowledge, contributed to the creation of “third spaces” (Moje et al. 2004) or “epistemic borderlands” (Cervantes-Soon and Carrillo 2016), as will be presented through the examples offered in this book. 1. Although there is no exact translation, the term “compadres” in this context refers to close friends —almost family—who are bonded by a child’s baptism. 2. Although infrequently studied, this is a significant population. Recent calculations estimate that more than half a million “U.S.-born children of Mexican immigrants moved to Mexico” from 2010 to 2016 (Borjian, Muñoz de Cote, van Dijk, and Houde 2016, 42). 3. See Borunda’s article, “U.S. Attorney General Calls Border ‘Ground Zero,’” published in El Paso Times (Borunda 2017). 4. PROBEM (Programa Binacional de Educación Migrante) and EBSF (Educación Básica Sin Fronteras) are two examples of these national programs. 2 Sociocultural Perspectives on Learning in Dual Language Settings The previous chapter introduced relevant literature on transnational students, border epistemologies, and community cultural wealth that we drew on to define the concept of transfronterizx students and transfronterizx capital. In this chapter, we further develop our theoretical framework by complementing the literatures on transnationalism, border epistemologies, and community cultural wealth with sociocultural perspectives on language, literacy, and learning (Barton and Hamilton 2005; Gutiérrez et al. 2011; Kalman 2008; Rockwell 2018; Rogoff, Goodman Turkanis, and Bartlett 2001; Street 1984; Wertsch 1991). We will refer back to chapter 1, as the literature on language and literacy practices intersects with the research and theory revised in that particular section. Within these large bodies of knowledge, we focus specifically on literature about biliteracy (Hornberger and Link 2012), mobile literacies and recontextualization (Barton and Hamilton 2005; Bernstein 1996; Kell 2000), and translanguaging practices (García 2009). In this chapter, we also review the literature on DL programs, with a particular emphasis on language use and literacy practices. Research on DL classrooms provides the background to understand the school context where students were encouraged to use their transfronterizx practices. We draw on sociocultural and ideological models of language and literacy practices. Ideological models of literacy, as explained by Street (1984, 1993) help to understand literacy (and orality) in its social contexts, taking into account the discourses, symbolic representations, and complex historical, social, and cultural processes around literacy. Sociocultural perspectives on language and literacy emphasize the need to approach literacy in the moment of interaction. “Situations are rarely static or uniform, they are actively created, sustained, negotiated, resisted, and transformed moment-by-moment through ongoing work” (Gee 2000, 190). Thus, rather than focus on language systems themselves, scholarship in the field of language and literacy education focuses on “languages as emergent from contexts of interaction” (Pennycook 2010, 18). More recently, from a sociocultural perspective, ecological models of language and bilingual practices shed light on the environment where these practices occur and inform “on the complex interrelationships among the different factors within this environment” (Gort and Sembiante 2015, 9). These perspectives emphasize that language and literacy are not discrete objects; rather they are diverse, multiple, fluid, complex, and dynamic. “Such ecological models acknowledge that bilinguals’ language practices are dynamic, malleable, and influenced by naturalistic opportunities in the environment that tap into their potential to develop and use multiple languages, language varieties, and literacies” (Gort and Sembiante 2015, 9). In the last decade, scholars have proposed a good number of concepts to try to capture this multiplicity of language realities, such as translanguaging (García 2009), polylanguaging (Jørgensen 2008), translingualism (Canagarajah 2013), and metrolingualism (Pennycook and Otsuji 2015). All these terms represent a new turn in language and literacy scholarship, which not only defines language as a social practice but also assumes that language diversity is not the “unexpected,” but rather the “expected” (Pennycook 2010). This trend of scholarship cautions us to be aware of the discourses that normalize monolingualism, language separation ideologies, and artificial linguistic boundaries, which ecological realities question every day. Recent scholarship in the field has proposed alternative narratives to those dominant narratives. Tied to these counterstories on linguistic realities, scholarship on transnationalism also questions artificial cultural, identitarian, subject matter, time, and geographic boundaries. “Migration makes communicative resources such as language varieties and scripts globally mobile, and this affects neighborhoods in very different corners of the world” (Blommaert and Rampton 2016, 23). The notion of superdiversity (Vertovec 2007) relates to these counterstories, as “superdiversity is characterized by a tremendous increase in the categories of migrant” (Blommaert and Rampton 2016, 21). In these anti-essentialist perspectives about language and literacy, the notions of repertoires of practice or language repertoires account for the flexibility of use of resources in a wide variety and moving array of contexts. “This dispenses with a priori assumptions about the links between origins, upbringing, proficiency, and types of language, and it refers to individuals’ very variable (and often rather fragmentary) grasp of a plurality of differentially shared styles, registers, and genres, which are picked up (and maybe partially forgotten) within biographical trajectories that develop in actual histories and topographies” (Blommaert and Rampton 2016, 26). It is in this new moment of the field of language and literacies that we locate our study. Data presented here on the repertoires of language and literacy practices of transfronterizxs speaks to superdiversity, as transfronterizxs offer particular ways to be in the spectrum of transnationalism, and their complex and mobile language and literacy practices—as will be shown in the next chapters—are tied to their mobile trajectories across national borders. Moving away from essentialist perspectives that may see Latinx/Mexican immigrants or transnationals as one homogenous linguistic group, we propose that transfronterizxs’ everyday practices question the artificial identitarian, linguistic, geographic, and national boundaries created by institutions, such as the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Texas Education Agency (TEA), and local school districts, to name a few. These everyday practices include language and literacy repertoires. Literature on Transnational Literacy Practices The “transnational turn” in immigration research reviewed in chapter 1 has also influenced the field of language and literacy studies (Lam and Warriner 2012). Studies of transnationals explore the flows of knowledge and practices that occur in transnational contexts (Lam and Warriner 2012). We use the concept of transnational literacies as defined by Jiménez, Smith, and Teague as “the written language practices of people who are involved in activities that span national boundaries” (2009, 17). Recent studies stress the link between transnational literacy practices and new digital communication technologies (Alvermann et al. 2006; Lam and Rosario-Ramos 2009; Lam and Warriner 2012; Mclean 2010; Stewart 2014), similar to the research findings presented in chapter 1. Transnational young people engage in digital literacies to read across a variety of symbol systems when they use the Internet for instant messaging (Lam 2009; Lam and Rosario-Ramos 2009) or send emails to kin and friends transnationally (de la Piedra 2010, 2011). Thus, outside the context of the school, youth read and create a variety of multimodal texts. Usually, these texts represent the youth’s purposes and motivations, “engaging their subjective experiences in ways that school texts do not” (Moje et al. 2008, 111). A few studies have also noted that students draw on their textual resources “derived from their transnational fields of activity in approaching” (Lam and Warriner 2012, 210) literacy in school (Ajayi 2016; de la Piedra 2011; Skerrett 2015). Researchers also emphasize the multiplicity of language, language varieties, and registers used in these transnational interactions. Among transnational students and their families, translanguaging practices—that is, the “multiple discursive practices in which bilinguals engage in order to make sense of their bilingual world” (García 2009, 45)—are used every day in and outside the context of the school. For example, Purcell-Gates (2013) documented the biliterate practices of immigrant farm workers and their families, who spoke Spanish at home with the purpose of maintaining the Spanish language for communication with their families in Mexico, while also using English in everyday literacy events. Scholars have long stressed the importance of promoting biliteracy practices at home, as well as inside the classrooms (Durand 2010; Purcell-Gates 2013; Gallo et al. 2014; MartínBeltrán 2014; Stewart 2014), with the purpose of developing both languages in flexible ways. Lam and Rosario-Ramos (2009) present a study in which transnational students employ the Internet and more than one language to communicate, seek information, and develop relationships in their countries with people who speak their native languages. For these students, digital media is used as a mediator to participate in different linguistic communities in which they make social links. Thus, language and literacy practices are resources that transnationals have available to them in order to preserve transnational identities, connections, and relationships—that is, transnational social capital as part of their community cultural wealth. Transnational literacy practices are not limited to speaking or writing. Richardson Bruna (2007) documented informal literacy practices of Mexican transnationals in a U.S. school, such as tagging, branding, and shouting out. These informal practices were used by Mexican students to honor their country and state of origin; they wrote the name of their state of origin in benches or the whiteboard, used clothes referring to Mexico, and shouted “vocal tributes” to their land. Religious literacy practices are among transnational practices. Transnational families read and wrote sacred text in Spanish, such as religious literacies on candleholders, calendars, and church buildings (Jiménez, Smith, and Teague 2009; Purcell-Gates 2013; Smith and Murillo 2012; Stewart 2014). Other studies have emphasized transnational students’ skills as literacy mediators (de la Piedra and Romo 2003) or translators for their communities (Orellana 2009; Stewart 2014). Stewart (2014) analyzes the case of a bilingual student whose rich biliteracy practices gained him recognition as a translator in church, in a recovery group, and as a poet. These studies have one thing in common. For the most part, precious and valuable transnational practices are not recognized at school. In an assimilationist context where the Spanish language is not valued, biliteracy practices are essential for transnational students to preserve not only their communities’ language (Díaz and Bussert-Webb 2013; de la Piedra 2011) but also their social practices and identities. Language practices are linked to students’ identities (Andrews 2013), and if perceived as a resource, they are powerful tools for learning. Bilingual identities are tied to students’ funds of knowledge and language knowledge. However, the pervasive ideology of “English-only” can shape students’ schooling experiences and identities. Some students perceive English as more important and valuable than Spanish, for example, aligning with the negative perceptions that mainstream teachers have about transnationals’ native languages (Andrews 2013; Díaz and Bussert-Webb 2013; Farruggio 2010; Relaño Pastor 2008). In addition, researchers also document the spontaneous uses of transnational practices—with no recognition by teachers and schools—or the explicit and organized instructional practices that include transnational assets of the students for learning. Thus, in these studies, students utilize their transnational literacies to position themselves academically (Hornberger 2007). These scholars talk about the creation of a “third space” (Moje et al. 2004, 41). Moje and colleagues define third space as the integration of knowledges and Discourses drawn from different spaces the construction of “third space” that merges the “first space” of people’s home, community, and peer networks with the “second space” of the Discourses they encounter in more formalized institutions such as work, school, or church. . . . What is critical to our position is the sense that these spaces can be reconstructed to form a third, different or alternative, space of knowledges and Discourses. (41) For example, Martín-Beltrán (2014) argues that there is a “third space” in the translanguaging practices of bilingual students with different fluency levels. Others have also documented similar practices where students translanguage in order to help each other to mediate learning (Olmedo 2003). Thus, findings of selected studies by scholars in the field suggest that pedagogical approaches in the U.S. classroom that facilitate transnational students’ engagement with transnational literacy practices already exist. These pedagogical practices usually include encouraging students to use textual resources and knowledge that traverse boundaries, guiding students to investigate the ways texts function in their communities, recognizing when students use diverse frames to interpret texts, and engaging with texts in personal and experiential levels (Creese and Blackledge 2010; Dworin 2006, Gutiérrez, Morales, and Martínez 2009; Medina 2010). We have contributed to the discussion of transnational literacies outside and inside schools, proposing the term transfronterizx literacies: Transfronterizo literacies are the multiple ways in which youth communicate across national borders in and around print. They are intimately related to everyday life on the border and transfronterizos’ fluid and multiple border identities. These include the events where youth physically or virtually moved texts across national borders. These literacies vary in terms of purposes, content, media, and identity work. (de la Piedra and Araujo 2012b, 709) The types of transnational literacies presented here have unique characteristics because students’ literacies are intimately related to their experiences as border-crossers. We found a set of practices that transfronterizx engaged in when finding ways to navigate U.S. classrooms. New Literacy Studies, Literacy Practices, and Context In this section, we address essential concepts that originated from the New Literacy Studies (NLS) framework, such as literacy events and literacy practices, as well as the relationship between these concepts and context. We draw on the theoretical and methodological framework of the New Literacy Studies, the ideological model of literacy (Baynham 1993; Gee 2000; Kalman 1996, 1999; Kalman and Street 2009; Street 1984; Zavala, Murcia, and Ames 2004), which approaches language and literacy from a critical and ideological perspective. It avoids the polarization of orality-literacy and technicalcultural aspects of literacy. From this perspective, literacy is a social phenomenon, “inextricably linked to cultural and power structures in society” (Street 1993, 7). In other words, “reading, writing, and meaning are always situated within specific social practices within specific Discourses” (Gee 2000, 189). According to this model, the social uses of literacy relate in diverse ways to the ideologies of literacy and the cultural values of its users. An assumption of this paradigm, then, is that literacy is not one, but multiple and local. Furthermore, there are dominant and subordinate literacies, according to how they are socially valorized. The notion of multiple literacies implies that there is not just one kind of literacy based on technical skills. On the contrary, literacies vary according to the context and society in which they are embedded (Street 1984). The notion of local literacies accounts for the literacy practices that are related to local identities (Street 1994). For example, literacy is performed and valued very differently in a school classroom in the United States, where essay and literary texts in English are highly valued and tied to “good” students’ identities, from literacy in a rural Quechua community in the Peruvian Andes, where religious biliteracy and communal literacies linked to local government and Andean rituals are most valued. Context, then, is crucial to the interpretation of language and literacy practices. In turn, language and literacy practices are inextricably connected to, even constitutive of social meanings, discourses, or social narratives. These literacy practices that occur in everyday interaction influence, in turn, the ways we think about ourselves and our ways of being in the world, as well as dominant discourses and our counterstories. A fundamental concept that allows the researcher to “see” the social character of literacy is literacy practices (Street 1993). Street builds upon the notion of “literacy event” developed by Heath (1982) to define this notion. Literacy event is “any occasion in which a piece of writing is integral to the nature of participants’ interactions and their interpretive processes” (Heath 1982). Literacy events also include talk around the written text, multimodal forms of communication, and the social rules of the interaction (Baynham 1993). Street adds to this definition, arguing that literacy practices are “a broader concept, pitched at a higher level of abstraction and referring to both behavior and conceptualizations relating to the use of reading and/or writing. ‘Literacy practices’ incorporate not only ‘literacy events’ as empirical occasions to which literacy is integral, but also ‘folk models’ of those events and the ideological preconceptions that underpin them” (Street 1993, 12). An example, and relevant to this study, is the deficit thinking perspective on the Spanish language, the hegemony of English that spreads monolinguistic language ideologies, as well as the simplistic views of bilinguals as the sum of two monolinguals. These are part of the folk models or discourses that are enacted in everyday practice and that influence language teaching and learning. In turn, these theories are co-constructed in everyday interaction, through teaching activities, teachers’ and students’ messages, and attitudes toward languages. Thus, “people’s understanding of [language and] literacy is an important aspect of their learning” (Barton and Hamilton 2000, 14) because these direct their actions. Using the notion of literacy practices, we were able to approach literacies, taking into account the micro and macro contexts in which practices are embedded. The NLS model accounts for both a broader societal context— power and cultural structures and broader discourses of school districts and state educational agencies—and the moment-to-moment, negotiated, interactional context of literacy. The children in this study participated in the fast and interconnected world of superdiversity (Vertovec 2007). “Transnational literacies can be seen as literacy practices that reflect the intersection of local and global contexts” (Hornberger and Link 2012, 264). Transfronterizx language and literacy practices developed within mobile multilingual repertoires “across local and translocal spaces” (Blommaert 2010, 9). Drawing on Blommaert and Rampton’s (2011) discussions of language, literacy, and superdiversity, “rather than working with homogeneity, stability and boundedness as the starting assumptions, mobility, mixing, political dynamics and historical embedding are now central concerns in the study of languages, language groups and communication” (3). In Hornberger and Link’s words, this represents a further paradigmatic shift from a sociolinguistics of variation to a sociolinguistics of mobility befitting today’s increasingly globalized world and mobile linguistic resources, and he draws on long-standing conceptual tools such as sociolinguistic scales, indexicality, and polycentricity to help us think about language in this new sociolinguistics. In this paradigm, contexts of biliteracy can be understood as scaled spatiotemporal complexes, indexically ordered and polycentric, in which multilingualism and literacies develop within mobile multilingual repertoires in spaces that are simultaneously translocal and global. (Hornberger and Link 2012, 265) Thus this paradigm shift in the study of language is tied to the paradigm shift of superdiversity introduced in chapter 1. These changes emphasize the importance of understanding the continuum and intersections rather than the duality of micro/macro, global/local contexts of language and literacy practices in superdiversity. Because of the mobility of the transfronterizxs’ lives, it was mainly important to pay attention to aspects of the context to understand language and literacy practices. Biliteracy, Translanguaging, and Multimodality Because of the superdiversity and globalization phenomena described above, language and literacy researchers have grown interested in biliteracy (Hornberger 2003) and multilingual literacies (Martin-Jones 2000); that is, “in the growing significance of two ‘multi’ dimensions of ‘literacies’ in the plural—the multilingual and the multimodal” (Cope and Kalantzis 2009, 2). Scholars add to the definition of literacy practices to include multiple languages, as well as a wide variety of means of communication, such as sound, image, video, and body movements. Responding to a “linguistic view of literacy and a linear view of reading” (Jewitt 2005, 330), multiliteracies and multimodality literature (Dyson 2003; Gee 2008; Kress 2000; Rowsell, Prinsloo, and Zhang 2012) proposes a broader view of literacy that includes multiple modes of communication and is rooted in social interaction. Similarly, literature that addresses polylingual and polycultural learning ecologies (Gutiérrez et al. 2011) proposes a social organization of learning for emergent bilinguals that privileges hybrid literacy practices and translanguaging. Research on biliteracy and multiliteracy focuses on the intersections of the fields of bilingual education and literacy studies. For example, Hornberger’s continua of biliteracy addresses the complexities of teaching and educational research, accounting for the enormous variation of what we mean by “being biliterate.” This framework helped us make sense of the transfronterizx’s literacy practices because, far from organizing dichotomist schemes (for example, L1 and L2, monolingual and bilingual individuals, or oral and literate communities), it accounts for “continua [that] are interrelated dimensions of one highly complex whole” (Hornberger 2003, 5). Transfronterizx students developed biliteracy along the continua of their Spanish and English languages, the continua of the contexts of language use on the border and across national borders, and the continua of a wide variety of topics that reflected their experiences as transfronterizx. Research in the last decade has reframed biliteracy (Escamilla et al. 2013) to reflect more and more the continua introduced by Hornberger’s continua of biliteracy model, and thus has moved away from a simple definition of biliteracy as reading and writing in two languages. We also draw on literature that goes beyond the notion of language as bounded systems to capture the multiplicity of language realities, such as translanguaging (García 2009). Translanguaging defines language as a social practice and assumes that language diversity is the “expected” (Pennycook 2010). According to García, translanguaging refers to the “multiple discursive practices in which bilinguals engage in order to make sense of their bilingual world” (García 2009, 45). These practices include not only linguistic knowledge but also “cultural knowledge that comes to bear upon language use” (47). Bilingual communities (including school communities) must translanguage in order to construct meaning. We posit that the notion of translanguaging is compatible with the borderland epistemology of transfronterizxs described in chapter 1. Translanguaging is an approach to bilingualism centered in practice and which questions the idealized notion of a balanced bilingual. Transfronterizxs and their practices question notions of nationality, home cultures, home languages, and cultural practices. They question the socially constructed neat divisions of language users. As scholars have recently argued for the case of emergent bilinguals (García 2009; Palmer 2011; Valdés 2003), transfronterizx language and literacy practices question the idealized notions of “a balanced bilingual,” who may keep two languages separate as if this were the only and “true” bilingual (Valdés 2003). Questioning these idealized notions is part of a counterstorytelling that confronts deficit perspectives. A translanguaging framework proposes that bilingualism and biliteracy are resources that can and should be utilized by educators in classroom settings (García, Ibarra Johnson, and Seltzer 2017). For example, Martín-Beltrán (2014) recognizes that bilingual students may use translanguaging with different fluency levels in their classroom. Students naturally participated in translanguaging practices while they tried to help each other mediate learning. Traditionally in DL programs, which are highly supported by research as effective programs for emergent bilinguals and other vulnerable populations (Thomas and Collier 2002), there has been a language separation policy. The rationale for this policy has been to try to protect the minoritized language spaces in instruction. However, this policy has been critiqued as artificial or as unfavorable to second language development (Palmer et al. 2014). Recent research has documented dynamic bilingualism (García and Kleifgen 2010) and translanguaging practices as resources that support learning (Canagarajah 2011; Creese and Blackledge 2010; Martínez 2010; Reyes and Vallone 2007). Contrasting English-only approaches defining students merely by their relationship to English or dominant ideologies of linguistic purism that value bilingualism but still have a dual or plural monolingualism perspective (Palmer et al. 2014; Pennycook and Otsuji 2014), translanguaging pedagogies approaches consider the wealth of meaning-making resources that emergent bilingual students already possess. After all, as García points out (2009), translanguaging is how bilinguals and multilinguals communicate, and we know this phenomenon is common across the globe. Translanguaging includes multiple modes of communication. Language does not operate in isolation from other modalities but is one of many different semiotic resources. Communicative events include semiotic resources such as gesture, image, audio, and oral and written language (Cope and Kalantzis 2000). As Kress suggested more than a decade ago, “it is now no longer possible to understand language and its uses without understanding the effect of all modes of communication that are copresent in any text” (2000, 337). When we talk about text in this book, we refer to textual practices (Arnold and Yapita 2000) broadly defined. In a prior research project about vernacular literacy practices in the Andes, de la Piedra found that alphabetic literacies coexisted and sometimes were integrated to Andean textual practices that required a broader view about language, text, and literacy (de la Piedra 2009). In order to understand these indigenous multimodal literacy practices, which included ritual and body movements, de la Piedra uses Arnold and Yapita’s (2000, 13) definition of textual practices to describe the kinds of communication practices that include diverse modalities of communication. They analyzed textual practices found in Andean textiles, as well as the rituals and oral texts, such as prayers, dichos (sayings), or consejos (advice). According to Arnold and Yapita (2000), these multiple forms of texts represent “a collection of textual practices and Andean texts, which complement each other” (13). These indigenous literacy practices remind us that the alphabetic literacy valued at school is just one textual practice among many others that coexist and are integrated with school literacy practices. Text has a broad meaning, expanded to textual forms such as pictures, poetry, song, body movement, photographs, graphics, models, videos, video games, computers, and so on. When we talk about text in this book, we refer to textual practices, defined this way. See chapter 8 for additional literature on multimodalities. This book contributes to this body of research that seeks to show the creative ways in which bi-multilinguals cross different boundaries (that is, linguistic, cultural, or national boundaries) in order to create new possibilities of language use and participation in educational settings. In this book, we illustrate how transfronterizx emergent bilinguals, with the guidance of their teacher, learn to use the full range of meaning-making tools—including translanguaging and multimodality—to mediate understa...
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Education Across Borders
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BOOK CRITIQUE

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“Educating Across Borders; The Case of a Dual Language Program on the U.S-Mexico
Border” is a book that is written by Maria Teresa de la Piedra, Blanca Araujo and Alberto
Esquinca. It was published by The University of Arizona Press in the year 2018 and printed in
the United States of America. The book has 233 pages. The authors were inspired by the news
and reports about immigrants crossing the US-Mexico border and the need to understand how
ethnicities and languages as portrayed in the daily interactions across the border. One of the ideas
well explained in the text is how the border not only acts as a physical barrier between the
residents of the two countries but also creates differences in consciousness and culture. To help
in understanding the dynamics that take place in the border, the authors look closely at the
transfronterizx stories that members of the Border Elementary School (BES), teachers, students
and school leaders, narrates. Theorizing of the linguistic picture resulting from the crossing of
the border is achieved through the application of dual language practices. The main aim of
writing the book was to provide a comprehensive insight into the linguistic dynamics of the
students who reside in the region termed as the US-Mexico border.
A three-year ethnographical study of border-crossing students is the main focus of the
book. The research was carried out by researchers specialized in studying the dual language
(DL). The researchers aimed at coming up with the answer to a question frequently asked about
the techniques that the students utilize to help in navigating through US schools. The school is
situated a few minutes from the river, named Rio Bravo in Mexico and the Rio Grande in the US,
which acts as the border (de la Piedra, Araujo, & Esquinca, 2018). Sometimes, the students
crossing the border were welcomed in certain schools while, in some, they were discriminated
against. The three authors also happened to be transfronterizxs hence adding their own
experience on the ...


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