Spanglish and Bilingualism in Latinx Studies: A Major, a Minor, and a National Curriculum

FAIN: AC-284574-22

Regents of the University of California, Riverside (Riverside, CA 92521-0001)
Claudia Holguin Mendoza (Project Director: May 2021 to September 2024)
Jorge Leal (Co Project Director: December 2021 to September 2024)

A two-year curricular development project to create two new bilingual Latinx history courses and to incorporate a bilingual pedagogical approach into additional Latinx studies humanities courses. 

This project proposes an interdisciplinary initiative led by the Latino & Latin American Studies Research Center (LLASRC) at the University of California, Riverside (UCR) to create a Latino and Latin American Studies major and redesign the Latino and Latin American Studies minor while infusing bilingualism throughout both programs. Latinx Studies programs throughout the country have educated broad groups of students in the histories and cultures of this growing demographic group while affirming the identities of Latinx students who typically completed high school without seeing their own experiences in the curriculum. Yet surprisingly, ours will be the first to design a full curriculum that capitalizes upon students’ familiarity with Spanish to teach them deeper skills for engagement with historical, political, and cultural texts and push them to continually analyze the relationship between language and power, all while affirming their real-life bilingual abilities.

Associated Products

Teach in Spanglish website (Web Resource)
Title: Teach in Spanglish website
Author: Claudia Holguín Mendoza
Author: Julie Weise
Author: Jorge Leal
Abstract: Teach in Spanglish is founded on a simple idea: while just a small fraction of today’s college students will progress to the high-level, all-in-Spanish courses offered by language departments, more than two-thirds enter college with the ability to understand Spanish when given context in English, support from their instructor, and time. If you are a professor whose research analyzes materials in Spanish or Spanglish, you can teach in Spanglish regardless of how comfortable you feel speaking in Spanish. If you are a teacher who can read a basic text in Spanish, you can also teach in Spanglish.
Year: 2023
Primary URL: http://www.teachinspanglish.org/
Primary URL Description: Teach in Spanglish website with resources for teachers.

Teach in Spanglish: Latinx History with Bilingual Primary Sources (Article)
Title: Teach in Spanglish: Latinx History with Bilingual Primary Sources
Author: Claudia Holguín Mendoza, Jorge Leal, and Julie M. Weise
Author: Jorge Leal
Author: Julie Weise
Abstract: Teach in Spanglish (teachinspanglish.org) is founded on a simple idea: while just a small fraction of today’s college students will progress to the high-level, all-in-Spanish courses offered by language departments, more than two-thirds enter college with the ability to understand Spanish when given context in English, support from their instructor, and time. Over nearly a decade in the classroom, our work has shown that students who took Spanish for at least two years in high school, at least one year in college, and/or who were raised in a bilingual environment (Spanish as a Heritage Language speakers, or SHL) can, with proper support, engage in high-level analysis of Spanish and Spanglish primary sources and original texts, utilizing insights from linguistics to both structure the classroom experience and guide students in their engagement.
Year: 2022
Primary URL: http://https://www.oah.org/tah/issues/2022/latine-history/teach-in-spanglish-latinx-history-with-bilingual-primary-sources/
Primary URL Description: The American Historian journal, Summer 22 issue. Holguín Mendoza, C., Leal, J., & Weise, J. M. (2022). Teach in Spanglish: Latinx History with Bilingual Primary Sources. The American Historian https://bit.ly/3GcLa4s
Format: Journal
Publisher: The American Historian journal

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