Tongue-Tied: The Lives of Multilingual Children in Public Education

by Otto Santa Ana (Editor)

Tongue-Tied is an anthology that gives voice to millions of people who, on a daily basis, are denied the opportunity to speak in their own language.

First-person accounts by Amy Tan, Sherman Alexie, bell hooks, Richard Rodriguez, Maxine Hong Kingston, and many other authors open windows into the lives of linguistic minority students and their experience in coping in school and beyond. Selections from these writers are presented along with accessible, abridged scholarly articles that assess the impact of language policies on the experiences and life opportunities of minority-language students. Vivid and unforgettable, the readings in Tongue-Tied are ideal for teaching and learning about American education and for spurring informed debate about the many factors that affect students and their lives.

Genres: Education, Nonfiction, Teaching, Linguistics, Poetry

336 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

I focus on how the mass media inscribe and legitimate social inequity. The American Political Science Association recognized my first book, "Brown Tide Rising: Metaphoric Representations of Latinos in Contemporary American Public Discourse" the Best Book of the year on Ethnic and Racial Politics. The APSA selection committee stated: “In evaluating works in this category, our committee reviewed over 60 books and found [Santa Ana’s] research to be a compelling examination of political discourse surrounding Latinos in California.”

I then put together a book entitled Tongue-tied: The lives of multilingual children in U.S. public education. Tongue-Tied is an anthology that gives voice to millions of people who, on a daily basis, are denied the opportunity to speak in their own words. Tongue-Tied is designed to open the hearts of its readers to these children, by way of literature and accessible scientific essays. First-person accounts by Amy Tan, Sherman Alexie, bell hooks, Richard Rodriguez, and less familiar authors open windows onto the lives of linguistic minority students. Tongue-Tied initiates a much-needed dialogue which, for once, will include these silenced citizens. With such an inclusive conversation, the current linguistic bigotry of the U.S., which most easily perpetuates itself through their silence, can finally be cross-examined.

In 2012 an anthology I co-edited appeared on the political events of Arizona 2010. We call it "Arizona Firestorm: The Global Realities of Immigration: Mass Media & Provincial Politics." Celeste González de Bustamante is my co-editor. We brought together top scholars in the fields of globalization, economics, immigration law, ethnic studies, education, and news media. The scholars cover critical aspects of the state’s anti-immigrant politics that the news media have not addressed. In very readable chapters these experts explain the factors that compel immigrants to leave their homelands; they lay out the historical context behind Arizona’s political acts, and consequences of these actions; and they describe the media’s role in shaping national opinion about the subject.

My most recent book is on how television network news portrays Latinos. It is called "Juan in a 100: The Representation of Latinos on network news.” Juan in a 100 offers 3 analyses of network television news images. It demonstrates how and why news stories with limited plots and restricted Latino characters constitute oppressive subject positions for news viewers as well as Latino subjects. I contrast such stories with examples of highly accomplished reporting that successfully expands the audience's worldview. While the findings are at times disheartening, I do not simply condemn the networks. Rather, I offer 3 distinct ways for scholars to understand US network news products, and 3 sets of constructive recommendations for journalists.

These days I am exploring the political power of comedy that is broadcast on commercial mass media. I recently published a paper on the racial politics of Jay Leno's humor. Mass mediated humor will be the topic of my next monograph.

Reviews

[Sabine Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tongue Tied is an anthology edited by Otto Santa Ana. Otto Santa Ana combines personal stories of many English language learners and their experiences in the American school system. Their voices are represented as short stories, poems, and essays. Tongue Tied consists of six major topics; the first part explains the struggle of students to be heard. Santa Ana supports these personal stories in part two of his book with a chronological timeline of important events, court decisions, and legislation affecting English Language Learners. Part three talks about the failures in educating immigrant children. This section explains struggles of African American students, who are also considered a language minority in this book.
There is one item that is not addressed, since Santa Ana includes African American and American Indians in this book, should these language minorities be included in an ENL program? Most ENL programs go above and beyond to help their students succeed. Other language minorities could benefit from such an approach as well, but there needs to be something concrete to address this gap. The author still uses the term Ebonics, which is outdated and over simplifies the complexity of English-speaking minority students, who sometimes engage with their native English language in a different way. The book fails to address this unique situation.
Two authors in this book, Moll and Gozáles address important aspects of understanding language minorities and suggest teachers frequently assume that language minority students don’t have background knowledge or have a lack of understanding. The authors recommend that the teachers should make an effort to get to know their students, including their home life and background knowledge. When the teachers’ know their students background, they can start building a curriculum that will match and enhance the student’s knowledge and assist their learning by presenting material in a culturally sensitive way and a way the students understand. The section in which the author addresses key practices that promote success for English language learners is somewhat outdated. The practices mentioned are already part of New York State guidelines and regulations for ENL programs. Regardless, this book is a wonderful collection of personal experiences that can educate monolingual speaker on the everyday challenges multilingual, multicultural people experience. It is a must read for anyone who encounters people of different backgrounds in their daily lives.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent and heart-breaking anthology that every teacher and anyone who works with multi-cultural children should read. It combines historical data with short stories, poems, and book excerpts written by people who went through the experience of being multi-cultural and/or multi-lingual children in the American educational system.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gained a new appreciation for the word pendejo. The affectionate insult is a true marker of membership in any language/culture.

For everyone+anyone who’s made a compromise to accommodate the Anglo mono-speaker.

Receive <3

[Natalie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was required reading for my 2nd language acquisition class and I have to say I LOVED it. The book is a collection of first-hand accounts of English Language Learning students of their difficulties in public schools intermingled with research articles about best practices in teaching. I would recommend this book to non-teachers as well since issues regarding bilingual education grace our ballots every few years. It never hurts to be informed!

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this book for my multilingualism class. I think is a great collection of stories (and poems) for those who do not live in multicultural areas such as New York. It gives you a great perspective of the lives of those who are new to the American culture.
Also great for teachers and those working hard to be teachers. You become more aware of the students in your classroom. The stories by Valdes and Tan were the ones that impacted me the most.

[jacky · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was assigned to read two selections from most of the chapters of this book. Overall, I enjoyed the ones I wound up reading.

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting resource, but I often have a tough time finishing non-fiction. It should have been assigned for a class forcing me to finish it. It was good though.

[Marion Dickel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stories and poetry from multilingual children about their experiences with public education. Interesting, sad, funny . . .

[Otto]

I edited it.