Language and (Re)Negotiations of Latinx Identity: Latinx Parents’ Approaches to Spanish and Bilingualism

Abstract

Little research has accounted for how the adult children of Latinx im/migrants approach Spanish as part of their ethnoracial identity formation and that of their children. Drawing on interviews with middle-class Latinxs who grew up poor or working-class, I consider the role of language in the social construction of ethnoracial identity among Latinxs by exploring the following questions: (1) How do the adult children of Latinx im/migrants understand bilingualism and the relevance of Spanish for Latinx identity? (2) And what are their perspectives on their own children’s engagement with Spanish and bilingualism? Findings show that language ideologies and Latinx panethnicity inform the significance they assign to Spanish, including their desire for their children to develop Spanish linguistic skills, as well as their views on their own bilingualism and that of their children. Their experiences with language ideologies suggest that they consider Spanish a form of linguistic capital relevant to claiming a Latinx identity. Latinx panethnicity can be understood as constituting a situational pressure Latinxs negotiate in their approach to Spanish and bilingualism.

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