In contrast with the field of second language acquisition (SLA), where until recently sociocultural concerns were largely unaddressed (Block, 2007), identity has always been at the core of heritage language (HL) education. The present article highlights this often overlooked history and presents action research centering on a Spanish critical service-learning program stressing identity and social activism in HL education. The article begins with an examination of the constructs of identity, agency, and advocacy in Spanish HL education and critical pedagogy. Stressing that critical pedagogy seeks not only to promote agency but also to contribute to social justice outside of the classroom, we provide an overview of our critical service-learning program melding university HL education with community language activism. The program builds upon HL speakers' classroom-based learning of critical language awareness by providing community-based opportunities to enact and strengthen identities as language experts and to contribute to positive social change. Next, we present and analyze qualitative data gathered in order to investigate the emergence of expert and activist identities among program participants who worked to counteract school-based subordination of Spanish by running an after-school Spanish class for HL speakers at a local elementary school.THANKS TO THE SOCIAL TURN IN academia, recent decades have seen a growing interest in the multifaceted relationship between language and identity, as well as in the role of identity in learning and education. In the past decade, second language acquisition (SLA) researchers have paid increased attention to the relationship between language and identity (Block, 2007), with language learning now seen to involve the development of new identities linked to the new languages, language varieties, and registers that learners acquire (Starfield, 2004). In fact, it has been suggested that one key challenge of language learning is for learners to retain their sense of self while also appropriating

This article describes a critical service-learning initiative in which college students of Spanish taught in an after-school Spanish class for young heritage language (HL) speakers at a local elementary school. We contextualize the program within broad curricular revisions made to the undergraduate Spanish program in recent years, explaining how critical pedagogy and our students’ experiences motivated the design of the program. After describing the program, we analyze reflections from participants that show how the experience helped them take their critical language agency beyond the classroom walls and integrate university, school and community knowledges, as both the college students and the children they taught came to view their cultural and linguistic heritages to be of educational and public importance.

In this article I describe the work of Leonard Covello, a New York City language educator and high school principal of the early 20th century who argued for Italian and Spanish heritage language (HL) preservation in schools. Although Covello promoted standard language Italian and Spanish in the HL classroom, he also encouraged HL students to use their languages and language variations for community service and activism in their East Harlem neighborhoods. Through historical evidence, I show that HL students' community work in their languages and language variations helped them develop a civic identity that contrasted with the delinquent roles presupposed for them in the public sphere. I conclude by offering Covello's work as a perspective for language educators in the 21st century.

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