Benjamin H. Bailey, Language, race and negotiation of identity: A study of Dominican Americans. New York: LFB Scholarly Publishing, 2002. Pp. ix, 294. Hb $70.00.

Extract

Benjamin Bailey's Language, race and negotiation of identity is the first extensive sociolinguistic study of a Dominican-American communicative community, and is thus a timely and welcome addition to the literature on Spanish/English bilingual situations in the United States. Bailey conducted field work among second-generation working-class Dominican-American high school students in Providence, Rhode Island, from August 1996 to July 1997. (The school at the time of field work was 60% Hispanic, 20% Dominican, and the rest largely Puerto Rican and Guatemalan.) His investigation focuses on the ways in which linguistic deployments by these young people enact ethnic and racial identity. His data are drawn from videotaped activities of six high school students in school and in one nonschool setting, interviews about language use and ethnic/racial issues with high school and college students, and general participant observation in school, home, and community contexts (p. 36).