“The Second Language of the United States”: Youth Perspectives on Spanish in a Changing Multiethnic Community

Abstract

How do youth view Spanish in our changing multiethnic urban schools and communities? In this article I explore this question by analyzing the perspectives and social interactions of students in an urban charter high school located in a community undergoing dramatic demographic shift from a predominantly African American city to a predominantly Latino/a city with a significant Pacific Islander population. Working from ethnographic and social language data collected over a school year with 8 focus students and their peer groups, I show how Spanish was understood as a tool of solidarity and exclusion, reinforcing ethnic division is positive and painful ways. I also show how African American and Pacific Islander youth desired access to Spanish and used words and phrases in important ways with their Latino/a peers. I conclude by discussing how education could utilize these findings to foster language learning and interethnic relationship in our shifting communities and schools.