Bilingual Community Education and Multilingualism

Ofelia García is Professor in the PhD programs of Urban Education and of Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Literatures and Languages at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Among her most recent books are: Bilingual Education in the 21st Century; Handbook of Language and Ethnic Identity, Vols. I & II; Educating Emergent Bilinguals; and Additive Schooling in Subtractive Times.Zeena Zakharia is Assistant Professor in the Department of Leadership in Education at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Her recent publications consider the interplay of language policy, collective identity, and human security in schools, during and after violent political conflict. These interests stem from over a decade of educational leadership in war-affected bilingual contexts.Bahar Otcu is Assistant Professor at Mercy College, New York. Her research interests include bilingual education, applied linguistics, language policies and ideologies, discourse analysis, and pragmatics. Her recent publications include a co-authored book chapter titled Developmental Patterns in Internal Modification Use in Requests and an article titled Heritage Language Maintenance and Cultural Identity Formation.

This is a bold and political book. It asks us to rethink narrow and isolating categories which segregate the energy and efforts of our bilingual communities and the education of our children. It is a book about the education of all our children and describes the potential of multilingualism in our nation states. It is a joyful and hopeful book. It describes the parents and teachers as the real leaders in bilingual community education and shows the relevance of their efforts for our children, communities and nations in a globally networked world. It is a realistic book. It does not shy away from describing our responsibility to support these bilingual community endeavours, describing imperatives for collaboration across educational contexts in the exchange of expertise. This excellent and accessible book takes New York City as the starting point for introducing a rich variety of case studies, as authors describe the extensive efforts of bilingual community educators. Multilingual neighbourhood, community and city educational practices are shown to be connected to much larger diasporic plural networks, making a positive contribution to global markets and world politics.

• INTRODUCTION: Organization, Content and Purpose of the Book: Ofelia García, Zeena Zakharia and Bahar OtcuPART I: CONCEPTUALIZING BILINGUAL COMMUNITY EDUCATION Ofelia García, Zeena Zakharia and Bahar Otcu: Bilingual community education: Beyond heritage language education and bilingual education in New YorkPART II: COMMUNITIES EDUCATE THEIR OWN BILINGUAL CHILDREN Community Organizations: Dynamic Bilingualism in Community Education Carmina Makar: Building communities through bilingual education: The Case of Asociación Tepeyac de New York Ruhma Choudhury: Raising bilingual and bicultural Bangladeshi-American children in NYC: Perspectives from educators in a Bengali community program Ameena Ghaffar-Kucher and Anup P. Mahajan: Salaam! Namaste!: Indian and Pakistani community-based efforts towards mother-tongue maintenance Supplementary Bilingual Community Schools: Innovations and Challenges Jeehyae Chung: Hidden efforts, visible challenges: Promoting bilingualism in Korean-America Naomi Kano: Japanese community schools: New pedagogy for a changing population Bahar Otcu: Turkishness in New York: Languages, ideologies, and identities in a community-based school Maria Hantzopoulos: Going to Greek school: The Politics of religion, identity and culture in community-based Greek language schools Informal Community Education: Alternative Pathways to Bilingualism Busi Makoni: Community-based initiatives and Sub-Saharan African languages in the Big Apple Roozbeh Shirazi and Maryam Borjian: Persian bilingual community education among Iranian-Americans in New York City Bilingual Community Day Schools: Changes and Continuities Zeena Zakharia and Laura Menchaca Bishop: Towards positive peace through bilingual community education: Language efforts of Arabic-speaking communities in New York Sharon Avni and Kate Menken: Educating for Jewishness: The teaching and learning of Hebrew in day school education Rakhmiel Peltz and Hannah Kliger: Becoming Yiddish speakers in New York: Burgeoning communities of bilingual childrenPART III: COMMUNITY-PUBLIC SCHOOL ALLIANCES FOR BILINGUALISM Laura Ascenzi-Moreno and Nelson Flores: A case study of bilingual policy and practices at the Cypress Hills Community School Jane F. Ross and Fabrice Jaumont: Building bilingual communities: New York's French bilingual revolution Isabelle Barrière and Marie-Michelle Monéreau-Merry: Trilingualism of the Haitian diaspora in NYC: Current and future challenges Tatyana Kleyn and Beth Vayshenker: Russian bilingual education across public, private and community spheres Wen-Tsui Pat Lo: Mandarin-English bilingual education in New York City: A case study of supplementary education in the Chinese communityPART IV: BILINGUAL RESOURCES FOR A GLOBAL FUTURE: RECOMMENDATIONS Maureen T. Matarese: Beyond community: Networks of bilingual community support for languages other than English in NYC Ofelia García: American multilingualism for a global future: Recommendations for parents, educators and policy-makers