How can Americans make our country stronger, kinder, smarter? By marshaling our enviable can-do ethic and learning another language. We can do it, no matter what our age: author Steve Leveen chose Spanish as his adopted language in midlife. America's Bilingual Century is filled with tips for learning a language, some mechanical--like changing your phone and laptop settings to your adopted language--and some philosophical. For instance, start by having a place in your life where you'll use the language, Steve says. The "where" makes the "how" more attainable. And recognize that, as with any adoption, you do it for love, and for life--so don't fret when you're not fluent in five months. If you have kids, start them young. You'll be glad you did when you read about the explosive growth of dual language schools across the country and the significant, measurable advantages they give our young people. Steve also takes us to the top summer language immersion camps, for both children and adults. And he shares his findings from leading language scholars, teachers, sociolinguists, app creators, and bilinguals of all stripes that he discovered during his dozen years of research. Then he topples 12 myths about Americans and languages that no longer hold in this century. Like thinking the whole world speaks English (it doesn't), that being monolingual is natural (it isn't), and that Americans suck at language (quite the opposite, as he demonstrates). Here and now in the 21st century, America is embracing its many ethnic and cultural heritages. How natural, then, that we enfold the many languages that these heritages thrive on as part of that quintessentially American pursuit of happiness. If you've never thought of bilingualism as being a patriotic act, America's Bilingual Century may persuade you otherwise. Knowing a second language changes the way we perceive the world, and the way the world perceives us. "English is what unites us," Steve says. "Our other languages are what define and strengthen us." And even if becoming bilingual leans more toward aspiration than arrival, that's okay. The journey is as rewarding as the destination.

Presents a diverse sample of twentieth century Latin American poems from eighty-four authors in Spanish, Portuguese, Ladino, Spanglish, and several indigenous languages with English translations on facing pages.

The Bilingual Revolution is a collection of inspirational vignettes and practical advice that tells the story of the parents and educators who founded dual language programs in New York City public schools. The book doubles as a "how to" manual for setting up your own bilingual school and, in so doing, launching your own revolution.

When Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Bilingual Education Act of 1968, language learning became a touchstone in the emerging culture wars. Nowhere was this more apparent than in Los Angeles, where elected officials from both political parties had supported the legislation, and where the most disruptive protests over it occurred. The city, with its diverse population of Latinos and Asian Americans, is the ideal locus for Zevi Gutfreund’s study of how language instruction informed the social construction of American citizenship. Combining the history of language instruction, school desegregation, and civil rights activism as it unfolded in Japanese American and Mexican American communities in L.A., this timely book clarifies the critical and evolving role of language instruction in twentieth-century American politics. Speaking American reveals how, for generations, language instruction offered a forum for Angelino educators to articulate their responses to policies that racialized access to citizenship—from the “national origins” immigration quotas of the Progressive Era through Congress’s removal of race from these quotas in 1965. Meanwhile, immigrant communities designed language experiments to counter efforts to limit their liberties. Gutfreund’s book is the first to place the experiences of Mexican Americans and Japanese Americans side by side as they navigated debates over Americanization programs, intercultural education, school desegregation, and bilingual education. In the process, the book shows, these language experiments helped Angelino immigrants introduce competing concepts of citizenship that were tied to their actions and deeds rather than to the English language itself. Complicating the usual top-down approach to the history of racial politics in education, Speaking American recognizes the ways in which immigrant and ethnic activists, as well as white progressives and conservatives, have been deeply invested in controlling public and private aspects of language instruction in Los Angeles. The book brings compelling analytic depth and breadth to its examination of the social and political landscape in a city still at the epicenter of American immigration politics.

This book includes the work of 20 specialists working in various educational contexts around the world to create comprehensive and multidimensional coverage of current bilingual initiatives. Themes covered include issues in language use in classrooms; participant perspectives on bilingual education experiences; and the language needs of bi- and multilingual students in monolingual schools.

Bilingual Education in the 21st Century examines languages and bilingualism as individual and societal phenomena, presents program types, variables, and policies in bilingual education, and concludes by looking at practices, especially pedagogies and assessments. This thought-provoking work is an ideal textbook for future teachers as well as providing a fresh view of the subject for school administrators and policy makers. Provides an overview of bilingual education theories and practices throughout the world Extends traditional conceptions of bilingualism and bilingual education to include global and local concerns in the 21st century Questions assumptions regarding language, bilingualism and bilingual education, and proposes a new theoretical framework and alternative views of teaching and assessment practices Reviews international bilingual education policies, with separate chapters dedicated to US and EU language policy in education Gives reasons why bilingual education is good for all children throughout the world, and presents cases of how this is being carried out

The most inclusive single-volume anthology of Latin American poetry intranslation ever produced.