La Cosecha/The Harvest: Sustainable Models of School-Community Engagement at a Bilingual Program

Abstract

This article examines the culminating activity—la cosecha or the harvest—in a yearlong project in which teachers at a bilingual afterschool program and staff from a citywide environmental advocacy group taught students to plant, harvest, and sell produce grown at the school site. The authors show how students are socialized to become empowered members of their heritage-language community as they participate in harvest-related activities and co-construct shared beliefs about environmental and social justice. By examining the interactions between adults and students, our findings extend previous research highlighting the pedagogical and communicative resources employed in educational heritage-language settings.