This article suggests that literacy development in immigrant, refugee, and other historically marginalized communities can be understood as a response to rhetorical struggles in contexts of civic life. To illustrate this "rhetorical conception of literacy," the article examines a collection of anti-immigrant letters published in a Midwestern…

Argues that the rhetoric of preliteracy is a 19th-century narrative that offers a subordinate identity and obscures the conditions through which literacy development is promoted. Examines the literacy experience of the Hmong of Laos to demonstrate how their supposed preliteracy is an outcome of a dense and interconnecting network of historical…

Drawing on ethnographic research on Hmongs, the author illustrates how her assumptions about literacy have been challenged and presents a new view of literacy with emphasis shifted from cognitive consequences to social context: literacy as a means through which relationships are negotiated. Makes suggestions for creating…

Focuses on the role played by a cultural and linguistic mediator in helping to elucidate the literacy learning opportunities of a Hmong child in that child's fifth-grade mainstream classroom. Notes important implications for working with second language children in mainstream classrooms and for the educative potential of viewing sessions when…

The history of the Hmong people of Southeast Asia is based mainly on oral traditions, and until recent decades there was no written Hmong language. With the introduction of writing, a new view of history is beginning to emerge, as demonstrated by college student term papers. (SLD)