Spanglish, Bilingualism, Culture and Identity in Latino Children’s Literature

Abstract

This paper examines the ways in which Latino children's literature portrays cultural models of bilingualism and identity affiliations based on language and cultural practices. We focus attention the messages in seven children's books about practices of and attitudes toward Spanglish, standard Spanish, and individual and societal bilingualism. In addition, we analyze how characters construct their cross-cultural identit(ies), based their language use and engagement in local and transnational cultural themes. Using assertions based on cultural model analyses, we show how portrayals evident in these books inform and are informed by larger cultural models of being bilingual and belonging to Latino bilingual communities in the U.S.Keywords Bilingualism Á Cross-cultural identity cultural models Á Latino children's literature Á Spanglish Á Transnationalism An increasing number of children's book authors are publishing literature that addresses issues of Spanglish, bilingualism and cultural identity affiliations that Latino bilingual children have as they grow in the United States. We argue that, through the lifeworlds constructed in the stories, characters and events convey messages to readers about the nature and value of speaking certain kinds of Spanish, of the relative value of Spanish and English, of separating and mixing language and culture, and of maintaining and severing identity affiliations with the culture of their parents.These messages often reinscribe ideological notions of linguistic prescriptivism, cultural assimilation, the hegemony of English, as well as sometimes deconstruct these notions through moments of cultural and linguistic pluralism. That is, when main characters express their views about what is good Spanish or comment on characters who use Spanglish and code-mixing for communication with other bilinguals, they communicate messages about how Spanish should be spoken and used by Latino bilingual children. Likewise, in stories where characters who grow up in a bilingual community are

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