As we reviewed the contents selected for this volume of BRJ, I was impressed with the pervasive tone of struggle in its pages. These articles are about parent struggle, student struggle, and teacher struggle, not only to learn English, but to also preserve home languages and cultures. They are a reminder that we err when we define bilingual education too narrowly as just another method for teaching English. We believe, however, that while transitional bilingual education can be a useful tool for teaching English in broader forms of bilingual education can accomplish much more.

Still, in these pages we can see that even those broader forms of bilingual education–dual language, two-way programs, or whatever you choose to call them–can also be flawed. In the opening article Pam McCollum examines the widely assumed benefits of two-way bilingual programs to help us see how and why English is valued disproportionately, even in bilingual schools. Parity of language valuing is elusive. By observing how Mexican and Chicano students experience the English-partial practices of a middle school, McCollum shows us how the native linguistic and cultural “capital” of students can be inadvertently devalued.

Other articles explore the theme of students struggling to acquire a second language and adopt to a second culture. Suzanne Peregoy and Owen Boyle note the difficulties that English-speaking elementary students have with learning Spanish, while Nicole Montague and Elsa Meza-Zaragosa consider the role that elicited response has on language adaptation in young school children. Xiaoxia Li narrows the focus of language learning and preservation to the struggle her own daughter endures in adapting to a new country, language, and culture while still nurturing her family’s language and culture. By applying research methods on a familial scale, Li documents through experience, how arduous these tasks can be. Her article contains valuable lessons for parents in similar situations.

Steven Lee, Russell Young, and MyLuong Tran also deal with the viewpoints of parents. Young and Tran specifically explore the attitudes of Vietnamese parents toward bilingual education and report that the majority favored a curriculum that nurtures the native language and culture of their children. Lee found similar opinions among Latino parents. However, through direct questioning of his participants, he discovers that most of the parents knew little about or misunderstood bilingual programs, emphasizing the need for further awareness about bilingual education among parents. I was reminded that one-third of Latino parents who voted in California favored Proposition 227. That was a strong vote against bilingual education. I found it puzzling, and I wondered whether it represented true opposition to the concept or if the results were simply based on inadequate information provided to those parents by the schools.

Cory Buxton, Tara Goldstein, Carla Meskill, Johathan Mossop, and Richard Bates explore how different facets of classroom life shape students’ understanding and acquisition of linguistic skills. Buxton concentrates on student-generated computer models for science instruction; Meskill et al. shed light on the growing impact of electronic texts and computers on literacy. Goldstein describes how a high school classroom uses art to limit the cultural and linguistic differences among students.

Turning the focus away from student struggle, Veronica López Estrada offers an interesting ethnographic look at teachers in the making. Her study followed six midwestern interns in a small town on the Mexico - U.S. border where they elected to live and learn to teach. Her engaging view of each intern’s experience generates vital questions concerning the preparedness of U.S. educators to serve populations in bilingual settings. Clearly, educating teachers involves much more than telling them in a college class what they will encounter when they graduate. They must ultimately experience diversity in real life and make adjustments only after they themselves see the need to do things differently.

Finally, Socorro Herrera and Kevin Murry step outside the schools altogether to examine “the power of referenda” and political agendas on bilingual education. “In the Aftermath of Unz” is a poignant piece that brings to light the often shadowed effects of such political movements as propositions 227 in California and 203 in Arizona. For those readers who wish to plumb this topic in greater depth, I strongly recommend the book by journalist David Broder, Democracy Derailed: Initiative Campaigns and the Power of Money. Broder explains how even a highly developed democratic form of government wealth can deprive citizens of the best ways to make policy decisions. Great wealth gives unparalleled power to the very rich who can buy their way onto the ballot with policy initiatives that can overturn decades of struggle. It is an important book whose message we should all ponder if we care about the health of political–and therefore about our educational–decision making.

Josué M. González
Tempe, Arizona
September 2000