Living Here, yet Being There: Facebook as a Transnational Space for Newcomer Latina/o Adolescents

Abstract

Under the category of diaspora media studies, the present case study investigates the social networking use of four newcomer adolescent English Learners in a U.S. high school. Demonstrating their transnational skills, the students use the social networking site of Facebook prolifically outside of school in order to connect to their home countries, maintain their Latina/o identities, and acquire English. Findings from analyzing the students' Facebook pages, interviews, and in-school observations illustrate that they are transnational, multicultural, emergent bilinguals who engage in sophisticated multimodal ways of communication outside of school, challenging their at-risk label in their high school. Immigrant students' transnational skills that are being nurtured through technology should be leveraged for academic learning such as acquiring English in the classroom and learning through global perspectives. Furthermore, language pedagogy and policy must change in response to transnationalism and new technologies in order to provide English Learners an equitable education.

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