Bilingual in America Pearls of Wisdom, Part 2 with Dr. Ofelia Garcia
May 26, 2022
Dr. Ofelia Garcia, pioneering bilingual education scholar and professor emerita, reflects on pride in family language practices and critiques limiting labels. She explains emergent bilingualism and frames translanguaging as a unified repertoire. Listen for practical ideas on when to open translanguaging spaces and how instruction should adapt to each community.
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Labels Can Erase U.S. Bilingual Identity
- Labels like "heritage" or "long-term L" create linguistic insecurity and marginalize U.S.-born bilinguals.
- Ofelia Garcia argues these labels erase U.S. bilingualism and wrongly privilege speakers born abroad.
Name Bilingualism To Restore Its Value
- Use the term "emergent bilinguals" to recognize continuous language development and restore the word bilingual in education.
- Name students' bilingualism to make it visible and politically relevant in policy and practice.
College Spanish Paper Sparked Language Growth
- Yarina recounts struggling to write a college paper in Spanish and asking her mother for help to expand her academic Spanish.
- The experience showed that even native speakers continue to grow language skills alongside schooling.