Language Policy and Latina Immigrants: An Analysis of Personal Experience and Identity in Interview Talk

Abstract

This article examines how Spanish-speaking Latina (im)migrants position themselves relative to US language policies. Drawing from interviews with 15 Latin American women in the USA, we illustrate how understandings of language policy are constructed through individuals’ reports of everyday experiences and framed within the constraints of contemporary language politics and ideological debates. Building on recent shifts in language policy research towards the study of how individuals engage with language policy issues, we argue for a close analysis of interview talk as a way of gaining important insights into this issue. Data from the study not only illustrate the existence of multiple frames for individual understandings of language policy, but also suggest how these discussions become terrains for the personal negotiation of identities within a broader socio-political context that is overwhelmingly anti-immigrant.