What Bilingual Education Reveals About Race in the U.S.
Looking back at her youth growing up in Douglas, Arizona — nestled up snugly against its Mexican sister city of Agua Prieta, Sonora — Laura C. Chávez-Moreno wishes she’d had the chance to partake in bilingual education classes.
She has had plenty of opportunities since then, including as a researcher who spent years sitting in on classes and interviewing students and teachers who were part of a dual language program in the Midwest.
It was structured in what some might consider the optimal way to teach language. Starting in elementary school, roughly half of the program’s students would be native Spanish speakers and the other half native English speakers. They would all buddy up while learning to speak, read and write in both languages, and they would graduate bilingual — a necessity for children whose first language was Spanish, and a prized opportunity for children whose first language was English.
