Since 1980, Chicago's United Neighborhood Organization (UNO) has been a major player in school reform, organising Mexican-American communities to build a neighbourhood high school, founding a local technical institute, passing radical school governance reform, and launching a major charter network. At UNO's apex in 2013, a corruption scandal…

This paper integrates theories and research from the fields of transliteracies and language brokering to understand the language and literacy experiences of bilingual youth who grew up in Mexican immigrant families. Analyzing data from three interrelated studies that used ethnographic research methods to understand the language brokering of…

This research study focuses on how the racialized experiences of second-generation Puerto Rican student activists in Chicago during the social movement era increased their political identity to demand structural changes in secondary and college contexts. Drawing from over a dozen interviews and 100 source materials, this research uncovers the…

Neighborhoods constitute a microsystem theorized to be of great importance for immigrant families, with the potential to support and facilitate families' transitions to life in the United States. Yet, few studies examine immigrants' perceptions of their neighborhoods and the extent to which different aspects of these neighborhoods, such as safety…

This article examines Facebook conversations between members of a transnational social network of US- and Mexico-born English/Spanish bilinguals. Extending Bourdieu's theory of language and symbolic power, the article uses the framework of language ideologies to explore how members establish identity and membership differently depending on whether…

Qualitative methods such as focus groups and interviews are common methodologies employed in participatory approaches to community health assessment to develop effective community health improvement plans. Oral histories are a rarely used form of qualitative inquiry that can enhance community health assessment in multiple ways. Oral histories…

This study describes how members of a transnational social network of Mexican bilinguals living in Chicago manipulate their language on online social media to facilitate and maintain close connections across borders. Using a discourse-centered online ethnographic approach, I examine conversations posted on members' Facebook walls and the contexts…

Increasing numbers of Mexican teenagers immigrate to the United States illegally to work, and few find their way to school. Instituto del Progreso Latino--an alternative high school in Chicago--serves these youth successfully. Youth agencies must provide services that allow these youth to attend school and discourage gang involvement. (SV)

This book examines oral and written communicative practices of a binational network of Mexican immigrants in Chicago and their relatives and friends remaining in three rural Mexican towns. The book's primary goals are to demonstrate the richness of the linguistic and cultural resources available to adult Mexicanos and to provide a basis for…

Describes Latino settlement in Chicago, 1910-90. Latino immigration (frequently "importation" of low-skill, low-wage workers) reflects U.S. domination of Latin America; consequent Latino vulnerability and low status allow real estate speculation exploiting their quasi-racial status through exclusion and market manipulation. Questions…

The design of the Benita Juarez High School will provide an environment of cultural and ethnic heritage for its Mexican-American students. (Author/MLF)

The Benita Juarez High School, now under construction, is designed to provide an environment of cultural familiarity and ethnic identification for some 1,500 Mexican-American students. (Author/MLF)

Analyzes Chicano murals in Chicago to illustrate how visual images engage communal development and community identity by tapping into shared senses of history, experience, and culture. States these murals present an argument for cultural pride and political activism by inserting into the public space of a community symbolic representations of…

Observation of a kinship and social network among Mexican Americans in a Chicago neighborhood, part of an ethnographic study, revealed a pattern of self-education in literacy among the men in the group who came from one rancho, while the literate men from another rancho were primarily school-educated. Economic forces caused one group to attend…

Presents results of a study which observed one social network of Mexican immigrant families during several years. Considers how Spanish and English literacy are used in their lives. States that, although many of these adults have limited literacy skills resulting from lack of formal education, they still manage a variety of literacy practices that…