W&M Homepage

Location

Sadler Center, Tidewater A
200 Stadium Dr
Williamsburg, VA 23185Map this location

Despite their envied bilingual and bicultural capital, college students who have spent years living and studying in both San Diego and Tijuana (transfronteriz), struggle with conflicting constructions of language and identity that are the result of rigid national and language borders. Bilingual interviews with 40 transfronteriz reveal that, in particular, intra-sentential code switching, or Spanglish, is frowned upon, because that way of speaking is identified with el hablar mocho de los pochos ['chopped up Mexican American speech']. Transfronteriz attempts to distinguish themselves from monolinguals on both sides of the border suggest the creation of "Migra Bilingue," or language border patrol, akin to the federal agents who track the undocumented. An anthro-political linguistic approach to interrupting the reproduction of linguistic and social inequality is advocated.

Hosted by the Department of Sociology, WMSURE, the programs in community studies, linguistics, Latin American Studies, Africana Studies, and the President's Office. Join us for a talk by Dr. Ana Celia Zentella, Professor Emeritus, University of California at San Diego, author of Growing up Bilingual: Puerto Rican children in New York and Building on Strength: Language and Literacy in Latino Families and Communities. {{http://www.ethnicstudies.ucsd.edu/people/faculty/zentella.html, Read for more information.}}

{{https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/DrZentella11192014, Please register.}}