Hispanic college enrollment in the U.S. will surpass 4.4 million students by 2025, far exceeding the growth rate of any other racial or ethnic group. Hence, the number of Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) identified by the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) increased to nearly 570 in 2020 and is likely to accelerate…

A sense that there are a limited number of role models at colleges and universities for Hispanic and other minority students has been a concern of researchers in higher education for a number of years but little is actually known about who Hispanic students consider a role model. Similarly, researchers have investigated the impact of mentoring…

Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI) educate nearly two-thirds of the Hispanic/Latinx students who attend college. Yet little is known about the student populations they serve. Findings from two NSF-funded surveys completed with students at 14 HSIs in Texas and New Mexico in 2018 and four HSIs in TX in 2019 are presented. The combined sample was…

In this paper, we investigate the effect that parents' language use (English, Spanish-English or Spanish) had on self-perceived proficiency, frequency of use, language anxiety, code-switching and cultural orientation of 206 Spanish-English bilinguals and multilinguals who were students in Texas where there is a strong presence of Spanish, the…

This narrative inquiry highlights the experiences of three high school students labeled Long-term English learners (LTEL) in a North Texas high school. This narrative inquiry study uses semi-structured interviews to restory the students' lives, emphasizing the emergent themes of family (the strongest pillar) and the language of the home (Spanish).…

With the increased number of Hispanic English language learners (ELLs) enrolled in U.S schools, there has been a need to prepare elementary bilingual education teachers with knowledge of content and language objectives to better serve the language proficiency needs of Hispanic ELLs. The purpose of this study was to explore the perspectives and…

This study investigates correlations of course level, gender, and ethnic identity labels with attitudinal dimensions toward Spanish by Spanish as a Heritage Language Learners in New Mexico. Participants in first-semester (n = 327) and fourth-semester (n = 174) Spanish as a Heritage Language courses rated twelve items designed to index language…

Currently, there is limited research examining the barriers that immigrant professionals experience when becoming a bilingual teacher in the United States. This study examines the trajectory of a Mexican national, trained as a teacher in his home country, who became a bilingual dual-language educator in a Central Texas school district. Drawing on…

This autoethnography explores my experience as a bilingual teacher educator on the Texas, United States-Mexico border supporting the development of preservice teachers' pedagogical Spanish language competencies through a course that I have been developing over the last few years. To this aim, I look at my positionality and experiences developing…

This article examines how four urban elementary teachers designed their literacy instruction in ways that sought to sustain students' cultural competence--maintaining their language and cultural practices while also gaining access to more dominant ones--amid expectations to prepare students for high-stakes testing. A large part of their teaching…

The study examined the influence of culture on the desire of a group of six aspirantes (Spanish/English bilingual education teacher candidates) from Texas to become bilingual education teachers of Latin@ bilingual learners. Chicana/Latina feminist thought is utilized as a lens to understand the role teacher education programs can play in helping…

The purpose of this article is to discuss the ways in which young transfronterizo students who live between the two worlds of El Paso (USA) and Ciudad Juarez (Mexico) bring their literacy practices and content to the classroom. Drawing on the data gathered during a 3-year ethnographic study, we illustrate how transfronterizo texts and content are…

A substantial body of research has collectively concluded that encouraging students to draw flexibly on multiple aspects of their linguistic repertoires is positively associated with developing bilingualism, metalinguistic awareness, and academic skills. However, most bilingual education programs--including transitional and dual-language--limit,…

This study was inspired by the literary elements of "cuentos tipicos" (culturally-relevant stories). The book "Prietita y la llorona" ("Prietita and the Ghost Woman") written by Anzaldua (1995) is a good example of a "cuento" that provides information about medicinal herbs and also includes…

Theorizes that the linguistic basis for Texas Spanish comes from at least two dialectically distinct zones and attempts to discover the morphosyntactic varieties in Spanish of second and third generation bilingual speakers. (Text is in Spanish.) (NCR)