Kami J. Anderson - Böcker

Language, Identity and Choice: Raising Bilingual Children in a Global Society provides scholarly insight into how foreign language acquisition influences an individual’s understanding of identity within the African American family. Rooted in sociolinguistic, communication, and bilingual theoretical perspectives, Kami J. Anderson describes how foreign language acquisition, development, and use shape how Africans and African Americans describe and proscribe their identity and, in turn, the identity of the family. Language, Identiy, and Choice looks specifically at how family language choices, in particular choosing to be bilingual, affect family communication and perception of identity from people outside of the family. Anderson combines both extensive research and her personal experience of being bilingual to challenge the existing notions of what it means to be Black when personal experiences with race and ethnicity extend beyond the boundaries of the native country or culture.

The​ Color of Language helps to shed new light on the intersectionality of language, race and identity by offering readers a unique multi-perspective approach to the proscription of identity when language and culture have a direct impact on the understanding of race and ethnicity. Using the lens of Afrocentricity, Womanist pedagogy and Foster et al.’s Heuristic for Thinking about Culturally Responsive Teaching (HiTCRiT) as an important pedagogical tool, Kami Anderson discusses raciolinguistics and its implications as a tool for language activism for Black students in the foreign language classroom, demonstrating how supremacist notions of language have often hindered the success of Black students in this area. Engaging in Afrocentric language activism to challenges hegemonic notions, The Color of Language explores the inclusion of Afrolatino culture as a means of offering new pedagogical solutions that can foster language equity for African American students in the foreign language classroom today.