Ana Celia Zentella, Growing up bilingual: Puerto Rican children in New York. Oxford (UK) & Cambridge (MA): Blackwell, 1997. Pp. ix, 323. Pb $24.95.

Abstract

The past two years have seen the publication of three books on linguistic practices among different Puerto Rican communities in the United States, and Zentella's book is one of the three. The other two are Urciuoli 1996 and Torres 1997. This sudden wealth within a particular disciplinary domain seemingly proves the first part of Gordon Lewis's (1963) pronouncement that Puerto Ricans are among the most researched peoples in the United States; but the sensitive ideological insights that guide Zentella's ethnography and analyses will certainly contribute to undermining the second part of his statement – that they are nonetheless the least understood. The books by Urciuoli and Torres are likewise valuable in this sense; but obviously, they are not under review here. Her documentation of the uses of language among Puerto Ricans in a New York City barrio greatly enhances our understanding of the Puerto Rican experience, as its meaning and place within “mainstream” US society is defined and contested through struggles over linguistic ideologies and practices.