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Viewed in a narrow sense, literacy is the ability to comprehend and produce natural language in its written form. A broader definition of literacy encompasses functional notions of literacy tied to the ability to use both written and spoken language to accomplish specific problem-solving and communicative goals arising in the workplace or in conducting transactions within everyday institutions of the community (Venezky, Wagner & Ciliberti, 1990).
This paper pursues a yet broader notion of literacy, as that referring to the general semiotic ability of individuals to interpret and to act upon the world within cultural and social communities of practice (see Scribner, 1978, and Wertsch, 1991, for a discussion of relevant perspectives). This broader definition of literacy proposes that there is a fundamental connection between language, communication, and everyday cultural activity. In order to participate in such everyday activities, individuals must interpret the cultural and social demands and contexts of activities, and the means of using language to participate effectively in cultural and social activities. This perspective on literacy emerges from the consideration of the social and cognitive roles language and communication play in people's daily lives. This approach to literacy is especially useful for a better understanding of how community members adapt to social environments involving multiple cultural perspectives and multiple languages.
Scribner and Cole (1981), for example, discuss ways in which Vai tribespeople in West Africa use Vai script, written Arabic, and written English in the pursuit of daily cultural activities. Vai script is used in casual social communication among community members, while Arabic script is read aloud as part of Moslem religious practice. English is used predominantly for formal, government pronouncements and documents. One of the most important contributions of Scribner and Cole's analysis is the indication that communicative competencies in each language are tied intimately to the sociocultural identities and cultural practices of community members. Particular functions such as invitations for family gatherings, reading religious prayers, and communicating laws and edicts, require use of a specific target language, and appropriate discourse forms.
In the context of the United States, Heath (1983), Moll, and others (see papers in Ferdman, Weber & Ramírez, 1994; Saravia-Shore & Arvizu, 1992; Goldman & Trueba, 1987) have examined ways in which the daily cultural activities of ethnic and racial minorities are related to both language practices and socialization involving different varieties of English and different non-English languages. This body of work suggests that acquiring and learning to use one or more languages cannot be separated from learning how to be a competent participant in activities requiring language use.
Defining literacy as "literate action" (Floriani, 1994; Durán & Szymanski, 1995) requires an understanding of how people construct communication and how they interpret everyday situations to pursue social ends. Literate action requires that individuals construct activities as sense-making and goal-achieving endeavors involving the interpretation of culture (Bruner, 1986, 1990).
Research suggests that learners of a second language acquire the second language most effectively when it arises as comprehensible input (i.e., when the use of the second language arises in authentic social contexts with extended meaning and uses for practical problem solving) (see papers in Malave & Duquette, 1991; and Krashen, 1981). If we are to help immigrant, non-English background families develop literacy, we must explore how language, culture, and society are intertwined. Furthermore, as will be shown in discussion of the concrete experiences of immigrant family members, we must assess the social and personal needs of family members in a firsthand manner, acknowledging the life perspectives and values of the family, both as a collective whole and in terms of the needs of individual family members.
The work of the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1977, 1984) suggests various notions of capital which are helpful in framing relationships between literacy in its expanded sense and social organization, which are particularly relevant to understanding the literacy needs of immigrant individuals and families. Bourdieu proposed that the ability of individuals to participate in everyday activities is governed by a variety of forms of human capital. The phrase cultural-linguistic capital can, therefore, be used to refer to the knowledge embodied in ways of acting and communicating. In order to request assistance from a medical practitioner, for example, an individual needs to know how to act the role of a person seeking medical assistance, and must be able to communicate with medical practitioners based on common beliefs about authority and how to provide information about an ailment. Cultural-linguistic capital is know-how developed through social experience and familiarity with the social, cultural, and linguistic demands of everyday interactions. In addition, again adapting from Bourdieu, one can suggest that social institutions themselves have their own know-how or social capital. While cultural capital is know-how that individuals bring to social institutions, the institutions themselves have know-how that may or may not be fully congruent with the cultural-linguistic capital of individuals. For example, think of the institutional capital of the hospital in terms of knowledge of how to speak and communicate about medical ailments with patients. Further, think about the potential incompatibility which arises when the cultural-linguistic capital of a patient does not allow adequate access to the institutional capital of the hospital. These are the circumstances faced by a non-English background immigrant seeking medical care.
The point here is that in trying to understand the nature of literacy and literacy needs among immigrant families composed of non-English speakers, we need to have a sound grasp of the full range of cultural, linguistic, and social knowledge that families need to acquire in order to survive. This understanding is not well-served by considering only information provided by formal assessments or questionnaires pertaining to the basic reading, writing, oral comprehension, and speaking skills of immigrants. We should go beyond concern for how well immigrants can perform isolated communicative functions.
We should, in fact, utilize better ways of communicating that allow immigrants to act as competent participants in significant cultural and social activities requiring language use. We need to think of literacy acquisition as being a two-way endeavor involving reciprocal relationships between immigrant family members and community institutions. We need to examine the capital of everyday institutions in terms of the cultural-linguistic and social resources that they provide. Ethnographic studies of the survival needs of immigrant families suggest that public and private institutions can be ill-equipped to assist immigrants with vital literacy needs pertaining to health care, social services, banking and commercial exchanges, schooling of children, and other issues.
Not all immigrant families have the same literacy needs. We are well aware that immigrants with extensive formal education, familiarity with English, and economic resources are not at risk in the same ways as immigrant families with limited educational attainment, little knowledge of English, and no financial resources (DaVanzo, Hawes-Dawson, Valdez & Vernez, 1994). Our own ethnographic research among recent Latino immigrant families (García-Ramos & Durán, in preparation) revealed a number of literacy learning needs among families in the domains of access to housing, English language learning, employment, family restructuring, health care, and parental reaction to and involvement in children's schooling.
While these findings are based on case studies of 11 families and cannot be generalized to an entire immigrant community, let alone to an immigrant population, they are suggestive of areas needing further attention in order to better understand how to make literacy training programs more effective for immigrant, non-English speaking families.
What the findings cited make clear is that understanding the broader literacy needs of families required not only isolated assessment of basic reading and writing skills in English or in Spanish, but attention to the cultural and social knowledge needs of families. Furthermore, poverty, cultural discontinuity, and cultural conflict were found to play important roles in the adaptive strategies shown by families (and to present real challenges to improving the literacy of immigrant families).
In the area of housing, for instance, parents reported difficulty in understanding the cultural and social meaning of terms used in advertisements for apartment housing, lease and rental documents, and oral communication with landlords about housing rules and regulations. A term used in a rental document such as head of household, when translated into Spanish, might be taken to denote "eldest and most respected household member" in an extended family household setting, rather than "chief wage earner," thereby illustrating ways in which cultural and social norms might affect coherent communication regarding housing. Moreover, the high costs of leasing and renting led many families to live in crowded conditions. In one instance, a total of nine adults and five children lived in a two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment in violation of the terms of their lease.
The family in question described how they tried to prevent the apartment manager from noticing that so many people were living in the apartment. This suggests that immigrant families can find themselves acquiring survival strategies that marginalize their acceptance by other community members -- people who play a critical role in their survival. The public's concern about the "illegal" status of undocumented immigrants and their perceived over-reliance on public welfare exacerbates this marginalization.
While immigrant families expressed a strong motivation to learn English and to attend classes in English as a second language, many interviewees reported that participation in English classes was made difficult by transportation and child care needs. In one case a parent had to travel five miles to attend an English class three times a week between the hours of 7:30-9:30 p.m. For a time a neighbor drove her to the English class. When the neighbor moved, the parent ceased attending English class because bus transportation to and from the locale in question ceased at 9 p.m. Other family members spoke of feelings of unwelcomeness and cultural and social distance while attending English classes. Some reported that they felt ashamed and uneasy when called upon by the teacher in the presence of other students who showed a noticeably greater familiarity with English.
Poor knowledge of English was recognized by family members as a significant impediment to obtaining employment, but knowing how to search for acceptable employment was itself a significant literacy need. Knowledge of job availability required being able to locate employment agencies or public places where job announcements were posted or where casual labor was hired. In the latter situation, there were no formal announcements that a particular gathering place (such as the fence surrounding a downtown parking lot) was a place to find work--yet this venue became known through word of mouth among immigrant community members.
In the case of skilled labor, informants commented on the difficulty they faced in understanding the kinds of work experience and skills needed in order to apply for jobs. Female respondents indicated that they could only find jobs below their skill levels because of lack of knowledge of English. Some indicated that they were forced to accept wages below expected wages in order to retain their jobs. One respondent reported that it was common for immigrant workers to be given virtually no notice about job termination. Another respondent indicated that it was a significant challenge just to learn how to get to a new job via public transportation. Just learning how to read a bus schedule in English and requesting information from a bus driver proved daunting tasks.
Immigrant families with non-English backgrounds also expressed the difficulties they experienced in their social adjustment to life in the United States: they experienced cultural conflicts with their role in raising children, and a lack of understanding of the role schools play in the socialization of children. The lives of families were changed overnight by moving to the United States. Relationships with kin and community were disrupted, as were culturally valued ways of connecting families to community life. Respondents reported that life in the United States encouraged relaxing or dropping values of compadrizmo, wherein families befriend each other and support each other's well-being.
Relationships within families also were transformed. One common complaint of Hispanic immigrant parents was that they found it difficult to discipline their children in a manner which established proper respect between a child and parent based on values in their natal culture (largely Mexican). Parents reported that some of their children threatened to report parents to school authorities if they were corporally punished at home. In turn, these parents felt that discipline at school was too lax and was turning their children against them.
In Mexico, parents were taught not to question the authority of the school, and to trust the social values transmitted through the schools. The perceived tolerance of schools for children's inappropriate behavior was viewed as a violation of cultural expectations and a destabilizing force in maintaining culturally desirable relations within the family.
In addition, many parents reported a lack of understanding of the curriculum encountered by children at school, and about their children's progress in school. Some parents were not aware of low-curriculum tracking of their children, and reported that they were accepting of "satisfactory" grades of students. Participation of Hispanic immigrant families in school parent meetings also proved problematic.
Although Hispanic immigrant children constituted the majority of children at one school, parent meetings were conducted in English with limited input and reaction from parents who were dominant in Spanish. Hispanic parents who needed a translation of meeting proceedings into Spanish sat separated from the other parents. By the time the translator had completed a translation of the preceding comments, the discussion had turned to other topics, thereby making the participation of Spanish-speaking parents difficult.
Immigrant, non-English background families living under economically at-risk conditions have cultural-linguistic literacy needs as well as institutional capital literacy needs. We need to explore ways in which agencies providing literacy training can be made more sensitive and accessible to immigrant families. Agencies must acknowledge the existing cultural-linguistic capital possessed by family members, while at the same time assisting families in acquiring new cultural and linguistic capital. We should pursue intensified research on community-based literacy programs serving immigrant families which are dedicated to creating general community consciousness and local public policy awareness of the needs of families in critical domains of sociocultural survival (Fingeret & Danin, 1991). We especially need research on programs and interventions that stress the importance of individuals and families establishing confidence in their own learning and in helping themselves (Wrigley & Guth, 1992).
Research on literacy initiatives supporting biliteracy also should be undertaken. There is strong evidence that the learning of English is a universal and eminently valued goal of immigrants, a goal which is not inconsistent with the desire of families to retain cultural and linguistic ties to their natal cultures (Gillespie, 1994).
Finally, research should examine ways in which electronic technologies can improve the literacy of immigrant families and family members. The emergence of simple-to-use "point and click" computer capabilities has created new forms of cultural-linguistic and institutional capital that are potential tools for promoting literacy acquisition among non-English background immigrants. Children of immigrant families are being given access to computers at school, and some of the computer software is available in both Spanish and English versions. The World Wide Web has emerged as a new medium of communication augmenting software and videodisks.
Children are gaining access to this new technology at an increasing rate. If for no other reason, the implications of this new medium for children and family members need to be investigated. This new medium spans local, national, and international settings, allowing users to explore knowledge bases that would have otherwise been difficult to access.
Parents' collaboration with children in learning to use electronic technologies seems an especially promising area for research. Making electronic technologies accessible to immigrant families will require research on the design of appropriate institutional systems to permit families' access to technologies. What settings will be most effective for what purposes? Will school computer labs, libraries, and other public institutions prove as viable as home settings for access to technology?
Clearly, poor immigrant families are unlikely to be able to afford purchase of computers, software, video disk players, and phone line equipment necessary for home access to electronic technology. And further, family members? use of technology will be assisted by the availability of suitably trained staff to aid them in the setting where technology becomes available.
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