Language Brokers

Hyeyoung Kwon is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Indiana University, Bloomington.

"Powerful and illuminating, this book uncovers the overlooked but essential language labor of children in working-class immigrant families living in the contemporary US. Through evocative stories and careful analysis, Kwon shows how bilingual Mexican American and Korean American children creatively navigate daily life in a society with limited resources for non-English speakers and work to ensure that their families don't fall through the holes in our threadbare social safety net. In doing so, Kwon challenges deficit-based assumptions about immigrant youth and their families while also revealing the multiple and compounding challenges that these young people and their families face. This book is a must-read not only for scholars of immigration, childhood, family life, and social policy but also for policymakers and for all the professionals—healthcare providers, educators, police officers, social workers, bank tellers, insurance agents, realtors, and so many others—who may knowingly or unknowingly find themselves communicating with the help of a child."—Jessica Calarco, University of Wisconsin-Madison "Language Brokers offers an illuminating, complex, and theoretically sophisticated account of Korean and Mexican immigrant youth who translate for their parents within the context of American institutions. In a compelling, beautifully written book, Kwon uses an intersectional lens to expand our understanding of the multiple inequalities that immigrant youth navigate and resist on behalf of their families, providing new insights about race, immigration, citizenship, and deservingness."—Dina Okamoto, Indiana University "Language Brokers is a lively account of immigration and race through the inner worlds of the children of working-class immigrants amidst a society operating under neoliberal ideologies and infrastructures. Kwon's conceptualization of an often taken-for-granted phenomenon, framed as a significant survival strategy, is an important contribution to studies on youth and childhood, immigration, and race."—Mai Thai, Sociology of Race and Ethnicity "Rather than talk over or correct youth, which is common in an adult-centric society that often diminishes the knowledge of youth, Kwon's respect for youth's skills and labor facilitates her nuanced findings."—Gilda L. Ochoa, Sociology of Race and Ethnicity "There's so much to appreciate about Language Brokers, which adeptly centers youths' perspectives."—Phi Hong Su and Sebastian Espinal, Sociology of Race and Ethnicity

• 1. Brokering Belonging2. English-Speaking Institutions in a Multilingual City3. Becoming Language Brokers4. The Double Bind in Language Brokers' Lives5. Doing American from an Outsider-Within Position6. Inclusion Work7. Learning from Children Language Brokers