Sánchez, P. & Salazar, M. (2012). Transnational computer use in urban Latino immigrant communities: Implications for schooling. Urban Education, 47(1), 90 - 116.

Urban Education47(1) 90 –116

© The Author(s) 2012Reprints and permission:

sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navDOI: 10.1177/0042085911427740

http://uex.sagepub.com

1University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, USA

Corresponding Author:Patricia Sánchez, Department of Bicultural-Bilingual Studies, University of Texas at San Antonio, One UTSA Circle, San Antonio, TX 78249, USA Email: [email protected]

Transnational Computer Use in Urban Latino Immigrant Communities: Implications for Schooling

Patricia Sánchez1 and Malena Salazar1

Abstract

This article examines the ways in which transnational Latino immigrants in urban communities use computer technology. Drawing from a 3-year ethnographic study, it focuses on three second-generation transnational female youth, their families, and members of their respective immigrant networks. Data were col-lected in both the United States and Mexico. Findings point to the ways in which urban Latino immigrants acquire technology and use this practice in binational, bilingual contexts. In addition, this research informs what we know about the digital divide, especially regarding bilingual Latino immigrants—a group sorely underrepresented in the literature on technology, communities, and schools. Implications for teaching are also addressed.

Keywords

Latino students, urban education, home computers, school technology, transna-tional immigrants, ethnography

IntroductionIn the past 25 years, immigrant students and their families have palpably changed the dynamic of inner-city life across different urban communities

Sánchez and Salazar 91

in the United States (Gershberg, Danenberg, & Sánchez, 2004; López, 2002; Olsen, 1997; Rong & Preissle, 1998; Sassen, 2001; Suárez-Orozco & Suárez-Orozco, 1995). Urban schools as we know them—with populations consisting predominantly of African American and Latino families—have taken on the role of being one of the first socializing institutions that immi-grants encounter on their arrival to this country. In addition, inner-city schools may be the “first rung” on the educational ladder of social mobility for newcomers. Thus, understanding how immigrant students experience inner-city schooling is important as well as understanding how urban schools respond to the changing demographics, cultures, and practices of their local multiethnic neighborhoods.

Because recent immigration waves have mostly brought immigrants from Asia and Latin America, the present study pays special attention to a com-munity of urban Latino immigrants. In the United States today, the fastest growing group of children in public schools is Latino (Suárez-Orozco & Páez, 2002). More than 60% of these Latino children are of immigrant stock, meaning that either they or one (or both) of their parents were born in another country (Rumbaut, 2002). For those Latino immigrant families who practice transnationalism, they maintain close ties to their families’ origin countries via regular yearly visits and/or through frequent communication (face-to-face, by phone, or online). The research presented in this article analyzes data from a 3-year ethnographic study on Latina youth’s transnationalism; data collected include interviews and participant observation among three focal youth and their families residing in northern California as well as their extended immigrant networks in the United States and Mexico. More spe-cifically, we examine the ways in which transnational Mexican immigrants, living in urban communities in the San Francisco Bay Area, use computer technology and to what extent, if any, their schools influence that process. By offering an ethnographic portrait of the home computer and Internet use of a transnational immigrant community embedded in a vibrant urban con-text, our aim is to help both schools and educators understand how campus IT (instructional technology) programs can be improved to meet the needs of inner-city Latina/o immigrants.

The two main research questions we pose are the following: (a) How are the intergenerational computer practices of transnational Latina/o immigrant children and families similar to the language and cultural brokering that occurs in language-minority communities? (b) How has engagement in a transna-tional lifestyle influenced the computer literacies of urban Latino immigrant communities? and (c) How has such an engagement been affected by issues of access? This research, then, also informs current work on computer access and

92 Urban Education 47(1)

the digital divide—the gap separating those who have computers and Internet access from those who do not. In addition, this article describes the ways in which transnational children and families have acquired and adopted technol-ogy in their daily lives and use this practice outside of schools in a binational, bilingual context.

In the following sections, we provide a review of the literature that includes transnationalism and Latinas/os; computer and Internet use among transnational immigrant communities; and the U.S. technological divide and how schools are implicated in this. We then present in more detail the study’s methods and analysis. Finally, our findings depict the unique ways Latina immigrant youth serve as cultural technological brokers for their families; the real-life effects of the digital divide in transnational urban communities who, ironically, reside next to Silicon Valley; and the ways in which Latino immigrant families fashion computer technologies to com-municate across borders. In our concluding remarks, we point to ways in which schools can improve their delivery of IT and emphasize the critical role educational institutions play in ameliorating the digital divide in urban communities.

Transnational Latinos and Transnational CyberspaceIf students are considered to be “transnational,” they potentially lead a life immersed in two different countries or engage in a lifestyle with personal and familial attachments to two nation-states even if physical travel between both is not always possible. Also, they either are immigrants them-selves or have one or two immigrant parents, and, as a family, they remain attached to both their new country of settlement and their country of origin. As the name suggests, transnational students have experiences, understand-ings, and frames of reference across (“trans”) two nations. The existence of such a lifestyle, known as transnationalism, has grown in large numbers among Latino immigrant communities due to the globalization of the world economy (Brittain, 2002; Guarnizo, 1998; Levitt, 2001). As the United States and other countries become more linked economically, their citizens also create links. Thus, as Latina/o immigrants (from Mexico, Central America, or South America) settle in various parts of our country, they tend to maintain contact with members from their country of origin. In the United States, this is quite common with today’s newer wave of Latina/o immigrants, especially because the United States has historically had a “fluid” border with its southern neighbors.


Much of the literature on transnationalism has demonstrated that in an increasingly globalized world, many Latina/o immigrants have the ability and desire (as well as need) to preserve connections to their countries of origin via an economic, political, religious, or familial manner while still becoming new members of another country (Aranda, 2006; Glick Schiller, Basch, & Szanton Blanc, 1992; Guarnizo, 1998, 2001; Menjívar, 2000; Sánchez, 2004, 2007a, 2007b, 2008a, 2008b; Wolf, 2002). Depending on the level of engagement with transnationalism, households also experience certain flows of people, money, labor, goods, information, advice, care, and love. These items can flow in either direction, from origin country to new place of settlement or vice versa; however, what is common is the transna-tional network that supports the movement of all these. Developed by previ-ous immigrant cycles, some transnational Latina/o students’ homes have a constant flux of family and fictive kin living with them because members from their origin community continue the pattern of chain migration to this country (Sánchez, 2008a, 2008b).

Because transnational households make efforts to maintain contact with members across borders, it would make sense to see an elevated use of comput-ers and the Internet among this population both in the United States and in other countries. Many studies on diasporic communities present findings of this nature. For example, Panagakos and Horst (2006) highlight the importance of technology to the relationships of care that must be constructed and maintained over long distances, such as those where parents have to leave their children behind in the homeland or where the transnational individuals are the children themselves (Wilding, 2006). Thompson (2002) reports findings on the diaspora of South Asian immigrants residing in the United States and the United Kingdom who regularly negotiate and expand the reaches of their cultural back-ground through technological means that include the Internet. South Asian mothers, interviewed as part of Thompson’s study, had daughters who would routinely use the Internet as their vehicle for the maintenance of a virtual com-munity across spatial borders. Accessibility to their ethnic peer groups online facilitated the maintenance of their home culture and language, albeit in a vir-tual format. In many cases, their new peers (of the same ethnic heritage) were people they had never met in real life and would probably never have the oppor-tunity to meet in a face-to-face situation. In this case, the diasporic culture was able to maintain close contact with people living similar lives as theirs.

The transnational families in Wilding’s (2006) study (living in Australia, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Iran, Singapore and New Zealand) used new forms of technology—particularly e-mail—to create, support and reproduce communities that transcended geographic, cultural, as well as political borders.


Whereas traditionally the work of maintaining familial relationships has been gendered work with women doing the bulk of it, the use of technology created different patterns in the maintenance of family ties. Wilding (2006) writes about siblings and cousins acting as technology brokers for older generations, pointing to younger family members as most apt to adopt the use of computers as part of quotidian life. Along this line, the participants who were intimidated by the use of computers tended to rely on the local children to perform the “sending, receiving and printing out [of] e-mails” from their families back home (Wilding, 2006, p. 136).

The electronic communication present in the aforementioned households is based on the participating families’ access to technology. This stands in stark contrast to families who, also residing in different parts of the world from their sending countries, are not able to circumvent the economic bur-den and hence the impossibility of maintaining and operating a computer at home. The economic costs of procuring an Internet provider in addition to a computer itself, compounded with the investment of time and effort to learn a new technology, become cost prohibitive for many families living abroad (Wilding, 2006).

While few studies focus on transnational Latinos and cyberspace, Benítez (2006) provides insight about the Salvadoran population in Washington, D.C. Investigating how immigrant societies make use of cyberspace, Benítez prob-lematizes the notion of digital divide by layering it between those with and without access to technology. Like Wilding (2006), Benítez (2006) pushes us to look at the digital divide as a global divide by examining the infrastructure and technological conditions of the transnational’s homeland. In the case of El Salvador, in 2003, approximately 8.5% of the nation’s population were Internet users—compared with 73% of the U.S. population1 who uses the Internet (Horrigan, 2008). Naturally, low levels of accessibility in El Salvador will affect the Internet use of its population. Regardless of the access of Salvadoran transnationals living in the United States, if the technological structures are not in place in their home country, their transnational contact will also be affected (Benítez, 2006).

In the next section, we discuss the U.S. digital divide and its impact on children and schools.

The U.S. Digital DivideIn the United States, access to computers and Internet usage can be examined across socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and age. Households with a yearly income of US$75,000 or higher, have a home computer ownership rate of


88%; at the US$15,000-US$24,999 level, home computer ownership drops to 33%; a yearly income of less than US$15,000 yields only a 23% home computer ownership rate (Chakraborty & Bosman, 2002). These findings point to economic disparity as possibly the most salient factor in determining which U.S. households have access to computer technology.

If we next consider the ethnicity of the U.S. population, figures for access to home computers vary. The two ethnic groups with the highest levels of home computer access are Asians and Whites; in other words, 78% of Asians and 75% of Whites in the United States have access to a computer at home, compared with 51% of African Americans and 49% of Latinos (Fairlie, 2005). These figures do not change significantly when we examine Internet access at home. (The reader should note that some families may indeed own a computer but cannot afford consistent, monthly Internet service at home.) Again, the two groups with the highest levels of Internet access are Asians and Whites, with 70% of Asians and 67% of Whites having access to the Internet at home (Fairlie, 2005). For African Americans and Latinos, these figures drop to 41% and 38%, respectively (Fairlie, 2005). In addition, if we look more closely at only the Latino population, among this group,

Mexicans have the lowest home computer and Internet access rates, followed by Central and South Americans. Although Cubans, Puerto Ricans and other Latinos have higher rates, all Latino groups are less likely to own a computer or have Internet access at home than are white, non-Latinos. (Fairlie, 2005, p. i)

Other quantitative studies on Latina/o participation in cyberspace cor-roborate these findings. Fox and Livingston (2007) in their report “Latinos Online,” found that whereas 14% of the U.S. population is Latino, merely 54% of that sector have in the past—or currently—use the Internet (whether this be at home, work, or another place). The discrepancy is exacerbated when taking into account that 76% of U.S.-born Latinos use the Internet, whereas only 43% of those born outside of the United States are engaging in computer-mediated communication (Fox & Livingston, 2007). This tells us something significant about immigration status and technology use. Ironically, while Mexicans form the largest group of Latinos in the country—at 64%—they remain the group least likely to engage in online interaction when compared with White and African American counterparts (Fox & Livingston, 2007). The primary causes, or significant factors for not engag-ing in online interactions, are reported to be education and language (Fox & Livingston, 2007). In general terms, individuals who do not graduate from


high school are less likely to engage online. Being that 4 in 10 Latino adults have not completed high school, their opportunities for participation are largely diminished (Fox & Livingston, 2007). Another predictor variable identified as contributing to less Internet engagement is the use of the Spanish language. Seventy-eight percent of English-dominant Latinos use the Internet as do 76% of bilingual Latinos, but only 32% of Spanish-dominant Latinos use the Internet (Fox & Livingston, 2007). However, caution must be taken in associating the predominance of one language as the primary cause of Internet disengagement without offsetting it against other contribut-ing factors such as poverty, education, immigration status, age, and gender (Fox & Livingston, 2007).

In schools, there are similar disparities related to ethnicity and income level when examining the digital divide among the youngest users in our nation. For example, in schools where students of color are the majority: 64% of instructional classrooms have the Internet; computers are mostly used for rote skills; and teachers are one third less likely (than their counterparts in majority White schools) to receive training and assistance in using computers (Gorski, 2003). In schools where White students are the majority, 85% of instructional classrooms have the Internet; analytical skills are emphasized when using computers; and teachers are much more likely to receive training and assistance in using computers (Gorski, 2003). These figures point to not only a social disparity in how we provide funding and training to schools’ IT programs but also how we ultimately exacerbate the institutional racism embedded in our country’s schooling system.

What is perhaps more frustrating than the digital divide found inside of schools is that for many inner-city or poor children, public classrooms become the only source of advanced technology. In many cases, schools pro-vide access to the Internet to children who may not have access otherwise (Bronack, 2006). In fact, children and youth in the United States are more likely to use computers at school (81%) than at home (65%; Bronack, 2006). And groups of students who are far more likely to use computers at school are African Americans, Latinos, those living in poverty, and those from single-mother households (Bronack, 2006). In addition,

those living in poverty are twice as likely to access the Internet from school only; the majority of those whose parents are not high school graduates access the Internet only from school; and nearly 60% of young people who live in Spanish-speaking households and access the Internet from one location only do so from school. (Bronack, 2006, p. 3)


Schools, then, are an important stakeholder in closing the digital divide.As schools attempt to do so, in particular urban schools who often have

students of color who live in poverty, preparations should be made to not simply acquire more hardware because the physical presence of a computer in no way achieves meaningful outcomes in either education or employment for populations that have traditionally been underserved (Clark, 2005). Instead, urban schools should tailor their IT programs to their local popula-tions: “There needs to be increased focus on the needs of people as learners—finding out why, when, what, and how people prefer to learn, discovering new learning methods, and identifying the basic skills that people need to learn better” (Clark, 2005, p. 431). The findings in this study, which immedi-ately follow the Method section below, point to some of the needs and ways in which Latino transnational immigrant families use computers and the Internet.

MethodThe data from this article come from two sources: (a) an ethnographic/PAR research project that focused on three Latina immigrant youth and spanned 3 years (2000-2003) and (b) follow-up interviews in 2008 with the same three focal youth. The ethnographic/PAR study was carried out by the primary author, Sánchez, who worked with Genobeba Duarte, Carlota Duarte (cousins, both aged 15 at the time of the study) and another youth—María Topete, aged 13—on a participatory action research (PAR) project in the San Francisco Bay Area.2 Each week, the four would meet to design and carry out a study on transnationalism and Latino families, as all four had grown up as transnation-als in immigrant Mexican homes in the United States. Qualitative methods were employed throughout the course of the collaborative research project. In fact, the four-member team traveled to Mexico together to their families’ natal communities to conduct fieldwork; interviewed each other and family mem-bers in both the United States and Mexico; analyzed data from the project which was later used to coauthor and coillustrate a bilingual-bicultural chil-dren’s book on transnational Latino families (see Sánchez, 2007a for more details on this literacy project).

However, at the same time that Sánchez was involved in the PAR project with the three youth, she followed traditional methods of ethnographic field work in documenting the transnational experiences of the youth and their families. Thus, this study is grounded in a combined-methods approach: PAR or participatory research (Hall, 1992; Maguire, 1987; Park, 1999) and multi-sited/global ethnography (Burawoy, 2000; Marcus 1995, 1998). The


ethnographic portion of this study includes hundreds of hours of participant observation where Sánchez, the university researcher, immersed herself in the lives of the transnational youth and families both in the United States and Mexico. Being bilingual and having been raised in a transnational immi-grant home herself, Sánchez relied on her own “cultural practice—that emerges from living within a particular cultural community and its social history—” (Figueroa & Sánchez, 2008) to inform the design and analysis of the transnational study.

Thus, at the outset, neither the focus of the PAR project nor the ethnographic study was on the technology use of immigrant families, per se. Instead, data on how families acquired home computers, used the Internet to maintain ties with families across borders, and navigated online services emerged in the field notes and interviews gathered across the 3 years of the study. This prompted Sánchez to return to the Bay Area in 2008 and interview the three focal youth to have them clarify certain events and uses of technology that emerged when analyzing the ethnographic data. Below, more details describe the data col-lected and its analysis.

Data CollectedThe combined methods used in the 3-year study led to many opportuni-ties for participant observation in both northern California (Oakland and San Pablo) and the two small Mexican communities where the youth’s families are from: Cimarrón Chico (a rancho of about 300 residents) and San Miguel el Alto (a pueblo of 27,000 residents)—both in the state of Jalisco. (Genobeba’s and Carlota’s families are from the same rancho; therefore, there is not a third research site in Mexico.) Access included the homes of the youth and their extended family members, special events celebrated within the ethnic immigrant enclave, places of worship, work sites, and schools.

Supplementing this ethnographic data are 14 formal interviews and 16 informal interviews with participants across the U.S.–Mexico border—though the 3-year study itself has many other informants who constitute a full range of transnational actors. In addition, five focus groups were conducted with the adolescents during the PAR project on topics addressing back-and-forth transnational movement and gender issues. All 14 of the formal inter-views and focus groups were tape-recorded and transcribed in their original language. The follow-up interviews conducted in 2008—whose focus was technology and computer use—were also transcribed and coded to clarify and add to the previously collected data on the same topic.


Data Analysis

When all of the ethnographic data were first coded, two simple categories of “technology” and “computers” were used to “open code” (Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 1995) the field notes and transcribed interviews when instances of these appeared. However, because the goals of the original research project were to study the lives of second-generation immigrant youth and their engagement with transnationalism, no further analysis was carried out to deepen or further develop the two codes involving computer technology. Instead, themes or codes related to out-of-school learning, negotiating gender across borders, the funds of knowledge of transnational immigrant communities, among others, were deepened by conducting sys-tematic rounds of “focused coding” (Emerson et al., 1995). Data from this focused coding led to rich analysis and produced multiple publications about the lives of transnational immigrant families and youth (see Sánchez, 2007a, 2007b, 2008a, 2009a, 2009b, 2010).

Sánchez and Salazar returned to look at the ethnographic data from the 3-year study after having several general discussions regarding technology, Latino immigrants, and urban schools—with the professional literature in this field being rather sparse. Using both “a priori” and “inductive” codes (Johnson & Christensen, 2007; Weber, 1990) during this round of focused coding, the two original codes of technology and computers were expanded to such themes as transnational communication, intergenerational use of computers, computer jargon brokering, instances of the digital divide, and learning how to use computers. It was after this round of coding that we developed specific questions to ask each of the three Latina youth in follow-up interviews; in other words, we wanted to build in some level of member-checking (Bryant & Charmaz, 2007) to see if what we had interpreted in the data made sense and reflected what had been found in the field.

After the follow-up interviews were transcribed, we further refined our analysis and developed two key questions that once again informed the final round of focused coding: (a) How are the intergenerational computer practices of transnational Latino immigrant children and families similar to the language and cultural brokering that occurs in language-minority communities? (b) How has engagement in a transnational lifestyle influenced the computer literacies of urban Latino immigrant communities, and how has such an engagement been affected by issues of access? We kept these two questions in mind as we went back to reorganize our coded data into more refined categories. Invariably, themes related to issues of access and the digital divide in Latino immigrant communities gained salience as well, which we share next.


Findings

The findings in this study come from urban Latino communities that are situated next to Silicon Valley. The tightly knit immigrant networks are spread across several clustered cities in the Bay Area, many of which have experienced rapid demographic shifts during the last two U.S. Censuses. For example, Genobeba and Carlota reside in Fruitvale—one of the nine urban community development districts of Oakland—where more than 56,000 people live; Fruitvale’s demographic shift from 1990 to 2000 includes increased numbers in both the Latino (up 43%) and Asian (up 20%) populations with decreased numbers for Whites (down 31%) and African Americans (down 13%; Sánchez, 2004). Presently, in Fruitvale, Latinos comprise 46% of the district’s population, 21% are Asian and Pacific Islanders, and African Americans make up 21% of the population whereas Whites number 12%. María and her family reside in San Pablo, California, which has slightly more than 30,000 residents.3 This community, like Fruitvale, has experienced dramatic ethnic transformation in the past 10 years; presently, its population is composed of 45% Latino, 18% Asian and Pacific Islander, 18% African American, and 16% White.

The findings themselves point to several interrelated areas: Many second-generation youth in these Latino immigrant networks serve as cultural bro-kers of technology for their families—with the eldest child usually serving in this role; also, students’ exposure to technology in schools (from public, private parochial, and state junior colleges) is critical in helping immigrant communities overcome the digital divide; interestingly, but not surpris-ingly, the digital divide in urban Latino immigrant communities affects this population’s access to cheaper online consumer goods—with access being tied to both the knowledge people have about Internet services/prices as well as their fluency in English; finally, communicating across borders for members of these immigrant networks is more easily maintained by coun-terparts back in the homeland who reside in urban areas as well, whereas online computer practices often encompass the whole family and not just individuals. (Note: The use of first-person narration in the findings refers to Sánchez and her collection of data.)

Access to Computer Technology in Transnational Homes: Youth as Cultural BrokersDuring time spent in the many homes of the three transnational immigrant networks, I witnessed the different ways in which computers, or lack


thereof, affected families. In fact, coincidentally, it was during the first 3 years of the study, that two of the focal youth’s families—Genobeba, and María—purchased the first desktop computer for their respective homes. Although the parents provided the capital for these purchases, it was actu-ally the two youth who decided which kind of computer to purchase and oversaw its setup and home use. (This was not unlike what Carlota’s older brother did in her home when the Duarte family purchased its first home computer a few years prior.) In the case of Genobeba and María, purchasing home computers was not a concerted effort by the youth stemming from our participatory research project per se. There were separate, unrelated events that led to each household becoming technologically transformed. However, what was common among all three households was the “cultural brokering” (Orellana, 2003; Orellana, Dorner, & Pulido, 2003; Orellana, Reynolds, Dorner, & Meza, 2003; Phillips & Crowell, 1994) on behalf of the youth for their homes to acquire computers.

The following field note excerpt provides an example of how María, an eighth grader at the time, convinced her father to acquire Internet service for their recently purchased computer. On this occasion, I have driven her home after one of our weekly participatory research meetings, and she asked me to come inside to see the computer that her family had purchased—it is the exact model and brand as my own, which I had purchased only a month earlier:

. . . María and I arrived at her house close to 7 p.m. Right away, she noticed that they had company visiting . . . María and I then went to a side bedroom, next to the kitchen, a converted garage . . . María had set up the computer here . . . I asked her if she had had any problems setting up the Dell. “Nope, not really, I just had to get my Dad to let me set it up. He wants it in the other room, but it’s not done yet.” (Mr. Topete has been taking off the sheet rock of each room and replacing it with varnished pine wood. The other two bedrooms are halfway done: one is completely redone while the other is in the midst of being remodeled.) . . .

María and I then talked about setting up the Internet; I answered all her questions . . . and she decided that all this information confirmed her hunches: it really wasn’t a big deal to set up the Internet now and then move the computer to the other bedroom . . . She explained all this to her father in Spanish and then asked if we could go ahead and set up the Internet. María also knew that her father was in a good mood


because company was over; she also felt that if he heard me telling him about the ease of setting up Internet service, he would agree to get it going. And so, Mr. Topete was convinced . . . and María proceeds to set up the Internet and an AOL email account. [From field notes, November 27, 2000]

In this example, María serves as a cultural broker for her family’s access to computer technology. In immigrant homes, there often may be a child who will serve as a translator for parents to the outside world (i.e., during doctor visits or parent–teacher conferences). However, these children are doing more than simply translating information from one language to another, according to Jiménez and Orellana (2006):

Children who translate act not only as conduits of information, but also as socializing agents, who provide access to information, resources and opportunities in communities (Tse, 1995). Their skills and expertise are vital for families’ health, survival and social advancement.

By seeking information on how to obtain access to a home computer and its Internet installation, María serves as a “socializing agent” for her family in terms of technology. The information she has gained outside of the home was brought back to benefit not only her immediate family but extended family and immigrant network members as well (which we will discuss later).

María first learned how to use computers during her elementary school years, and, by middle school, she was rather adept at surfing the web and using several software programs. However, her “cultural” and “social capi-tal” (Bourdieu, 1986; Monkman, Ronald, & Théramène, 2005; Stanton-Salazar, 2001) were limited in navigating the purchase and setup of a home computer—her computer classes at school had not addressed this topic. And even though María attended schools in a district where more than 40% of the students are White and more than half have parents with college degrees (Berkeley Unified School District, 2005)—indicating perhaps that these students are in households with home computer use, María did not have a close peer that met these characteristics who could describe to her how to purchase a home computer. Instead, when she met me and became a part of the participatory research project, she learned how a graduate stu-dent had purchased a PC for educational and personal use. She took this information back to her parents, in particular her father, who all agreed that their three daughters needed a home computer to complete school assign-ments that were becoming increasingly Internet-demanding.


In the above field note excerpt, María not only brokers new information about the Internet, its function, and home installation, but she also translates this to her father in another language: Spanish. She has already done some-thing similar in the previous weeks with the purchase of their household’s first home computer. However, María also brokers patriarchal authority when obtaining Internet service because her father does not think they should set up the Internet until the other bedroom is remodeled. María brings me, an outsider with somewhat “official” knowledge about computers, to help nego-tiate the transaction; she also takes advantage of her father’s good mood that evening and achieves her goal of acquiring home Internet service. Moreover, by her managing the paperwork and accompanying pamphlets, it is clear that María will continue to be the family member principally in charge of the Topete home computer.

Like María, Genobeba was also first exposed to computers outside of the home—which is often not the case for middle-class White families whose children come into contact with home computers at an early age, prior to enrolling in school. If immigrant children come from homes whose family members work in low-skill jobs and/or are not formally educated, their first exposure to computer technology will most likely not occur until they attend school, and, even then, this exposure will only occur if the school they attend is not strapped financially and can provide computational resources to its students and teachers. And when computer skills are a part of the school’s curriculum, this still may not provide all the knowledge “digital immigrants” (Prensky, 2001) may need to help their families obtain a home computer with Internet access.

Genobeba obtained information about purchasing their family’s first home computer—a graphite iMac G3—from her all-girls, largely African American, Catholic private school. At that time, Apple had just started its popular, color-ful (and “flavorful”) line of iMac G3s. In Carlota’s household, however, her oldest brother decided which PC their family should purchase; he had already spent 2 years at a local junior college where he learned more about the use and relevance of computers. In these households, like María’s, the parents agreed that their children needed home computers for schoolwork but deferred the role of knowledgeable consumer to their children. Thus, the decision-making process in these households relied on the eldest child bringing home informa-tion about computer technology while the transnational immigrant youth relied on both their social networks and schooling to obtain such knowledge and access.

In addition to securing access to computer technology, immigrant families in the United States contend with the issue of computer maintenance. Although


this concern is also faced by almost anyone in this country who owns a com-puter, for immigrant ethnic enclaves, access to bilingual computer maintenance services is crucial. This is especially important for communities who have tra-ditionally been marginalized by the digital divide, in particular non-English-speaking minorities. On several occasions, I was asked by different network families to help fix their home computers; these “repairs” at times were simple installation questions or Internet service setups. While I found it surprising to be asked to render this kind of help—because neither do I believe myself to be highly computer savvy nor do I self-promote myself in this way, immigrant network members saw me in this light because I was associated with a univer-sity as a full-time graduate student. In one instance, María asked me to drive to her Tía Natalia’s apartment to go look at her older model PC and why it would not connect to the Internet. I complied and did the best I could without success. I instead had a friend—who was a bona fide “dot-commer”—return with me on a different occasion to fix Tía Natalia’s computer.

Within the transnational Latino immigrant network homes visited throughout this study, any members who had either attended college, lived in a dorm, or owned a personal home computer, came to be seen as someone with computer expertise. While these bilingual network members were few, given that so many of the transnational families’ second-generation children were much younger and access to both college and college residential life is still limited in these communities, the other method of securing someone with computer expertise was via social capital networks, like María’s aunt did with me and then with my dot-commer contact. Youth like María, Genobeba, and Carlota’s older brother possessed greater knowledge about the use of computers and the Internet than they did about troubleshooting or repairing computers. This prompted me to look for bilingual computer repair services in the business pages of this region as well as in the classifieds of local Spanish-language newspapers. I found none then. During my research study, I only found one instance of computer-related Spanish-language advertising: an ad from Univisión4 on its local television station promoting a home computer package that included a PC with Internet service with easy monthly installments. A fam-ily who had purchased this package asked me to help set up the new computer and Internet service for them because even though the instructions were in Spanish—as was the customer service help by phone, it was still an over-whelming process due to their limited exposure and experience with comput-ers; the head of the household was a divorced mother from Mexico (with limited schooling) who worked as a caregiver for affluent White families. While all four children (ages 7-16) in this household had used computers in local Bay Area schools, they did not know how to manipulate most of the


equipment components to set up their new home computer and Internet ser-vice even when service help was provided in their native language.

Until this day, both María and Genobeba—who no longer live at home—still help troubleshoot computer problems for their younger siblings as well as secure the best DSL services for their households. As Genobeba explained in a follow-up interview in 2008, “So I have to see [what DSL services are out there] . . . ’cuz my mom and dad don’t know about that. I have to stay on top of it. I don’t want them getting ripped off.” This is true because the adults at home have not acquired enough knowledge or expertise in an area in which their children surely have via their collegiate studies and employment.

The Effects of the Digital DividePerhaps at the other end of the spectrum of those network households who are not familiar with the workings of computer installation and Internet ser-vice are those who know enough to take advantage of other immigrant net-work members. Raquel Ponce was one such network member who overcharged house guests Internet service. Mrs. Ponce and her husband and two kids lived in a three-bedroom home in Hayward, California; all four of them slept in one of the bedrooms whereas the other two were rented out to several young males who had immigrated to the Bay Area from Mexico to seek stable employment. She charged each young man rent, utilities, and food. When two of her renters, Lalo and Nene, purchased a computer at a local computer store, they asked Mrs. Ponce to investigate Internet costs for them and to simply add this to their monthly utility bill. At that time, Internet service providers available in the Bay Area were charging as low as US$14.99 a month for dial-up service. Mrs. Ponce, however, charged Lalo and Nene US$60 a month for Internet service! She knowingly overcharged them because she knew that neither young man had any idea how much such ser-vices really cost in this country as there was no advertising of this kind in any Spanish-language media at the time, and Internet/computer use was not wide-spread in their circle of young male blue-collar workers.

In this example, the digital divide ironically works to the benefit of a minor-ity immigrant woman. However, the lack of advertising and outreach to Latino customers on the part of major technology companies and services contributes to creating a less informed Spanish-speaking consumer—Lalo and Nene, for example. However, more often the digital divide perpetuates inequities for working-class groups who neither can afford nor have access to this technol-ogy. What I observed in the course of this study was a staggering economic divide in terms of Internet services and goods accessible to transnational


Latino immigrant communities. The following two examples highlight the economic disadvantages of being left out of the cyberspace market.

Paula Gonzáles, a second-generation bilingual teacher in her early 20s, related to me one of her experiences in helping two distant cousins of hers. Because her aunt knew that Paula occasionally flew to places like Las Vegas or Los Angeles with her former college roommates, she asked Paula if she could find affordable plane tickets online for Abel and Rigo. Abel and Rigo were in North Carolina on 6-month guest worker visas but now wanted to move to the Bay Area to find permanent work in the construction industry. However, when Paula’s aunt went to the local bilingual mom-and-pop travel agencies in Oakland, the plane ticket prices from North Carolina to California were exorbitant. She then asked Paula to purchase tickets online for Abel and Rigo, which Paula did for considerably lower prices than the local travel agencies; the e-tickets were also cheaper than those that could be purchased by phone from major airlines.

In another immigrant household, a wife (Elena De León) told me how her husband and his friends would purchase used car stereos and speakers at the local flea market for prices much lower than mainstream car accessory stores and install these in many network members’ cars. When I looked into having my own car’s stereo upgraded by Mr. De León, I found that used car stereo prices on eBay (an online auction and shopping website) and Craigslist (an online forum of free classified advertisements) were up to 35% less expensive than those at the flea market. I did similar comparisons with used furniture and baby items—as these were other popular goods many transna-tional Latino households would purchase at the flea market. Again, the online items were considerably lower in price.

These last two examples point to the fact that places which have tradi-tionally been sources of discounted goods and services for many immi-grants—locally based travel agencies and flea markets—no longer provide the best deal. Instead, these face-to-face places of business are being out-paced by those business transactions available on the Internet which provide similar services and goods at considerably lower prices. However, to take advantage of these offers, one must know English and have access to both a computer and the Internet—let alone know that cyberspace outlets like eBay and Craigslist even exist. Ironically, both eBay and Craigslist are multimil-lion dollar enterprises which were founded in 1995 in San Jose and San Francisco, California, respectively; however, for marginalized communi-ties, physical proximity to these dot-commer companies does not necessar-ily equate to neither better access nor participation in these money-saving services. At present, the consumer base of eBay and Craigslist is the White


middle-class shopper who has more expendable money than the working-class or working-poor Latina/o immigrant. The digital divide exacerbates this difference, allowing one group to continue to reap greater economic benefits than the other.

Communicating Across BordersWhile one of the primary issues that Latino immigrant communities must first contend with is having access to computer technology and Internet service, once this access is gained, communication with family members (and/or other Latino families) across borders can be greatly facilitated. Of course, this com-munication is dependent on network members in rural and semirural parts of Mexico having access to computer technology as well. In the case of the three focal Latina youth, several of their relatives—mostly same-aged cousins—would participate in online interaction with them through local cybercafés. During field work in Mexico, I found that many of these cybercafés charged reasonable prices, usually 10 pesos for 1 hr of Internet use (approximately US$1). Also, the cybercafés were run out of the front rooms of homes or in small rented spaces in prime locations near the plazas. However, in the case of Genobeba’s and Carlota’s relatives who resided in el rancho Cimarrón Chico, Internet use was only accessible down the mountain in the larger city of Mascota. Such physical distance made online communication less frequent between sets of cousins in this community.

Some of the topics that Genobeba, Carlota, and María would discuss via email with their cousins in Mexico included, but were not limited to, upcom-ing or past trips to Jalisco; any updates or gossip in their families’ natal communities; the latest happenings, especially social events, that took place in northern California within their immigrant ethnic enclaves; and the upcoming potential border-crossing of a relative into the United States. All of this typed communication took place in Spanish and was additional to the international phone conversations they also had with the same cousins and other relatives back in Cimmarrón Chico and San Miguel el Alto. The youth also met teenage boys from other local Jalisco ranchos who would maintain Internet contact with them even after these young men moved and found work in Atlanta or Chicago.

Other online modes of communication among the Latino immigrant homes in this study included the use of chat rooms and webcams. One 28-year-old cousin, Susana Gómez, who came to the United States to work as a babysitter for 4 months, left behind a 3-year-old son (Martín) in Mexico. As a single mom—and being the first time she and her son had been apart,


Susana arranged for her nieces to take Martín to the local cybercafé at a pre-scribed time each week where she, in the United States, would also use a rela-tive’s home computer to see Martín on a live webcam. In this manner, Susana practiced “transnational motherhood” (Hondagneu-Sotelo & Avila, 1997) with computer technology as a vehicle for this care to be transmitted across borders. Susana confided in me that being able to at least see and hear each other was better than a phone call porque los niños crecen tan rápido y de un día para otro cambian. Y pos, yo no quiero que me olvide cuando esté acá (because children grow up so fast, from one day to the next. And well, I don’t want him to forget me while I am over here). In her statement, Susana also takes into account the difficulty of maintaining transnational relationships, especially with young children, and how the distance can slowly erase the memory, or at least fade the mental picture, of a loved one if there is no face-to-face contact.

One of the most interesting online practices I documented during the time of this study was the way in which Latino families on both sides of the border chatted online with other Latino families. I found this appealing because online chatting is usually conceived of person-to-person instant communica-tion. However, in several homes, this practice became “people-to-people” or “family-to-family” instant messaging. For example, in María’s home, after having their new computer set up with Internet service, Mr. Topete asked me a few months later about purchasing a webcam because his own family had met online a family from Chihuahua, Mexico. The Chihuahuan family chatted online with a webcam, allowing the Topetes to view them but not vice versa—until Mr. Topete purchased his own webcam.

I later asked María to tell me more how her father had started using their home computer and became interested in online chatting. María explained,

Mi dad, he first did not want us to chat online at all. And then I showed him how to chat, how I met people from Mexico inside some chat rooms. So he figured it out, and after he finished eating dinner, he would chat really late at night. Y después he met this family from Chihuahua and he was all hella yelling, “¡Ey, vieja, mira ésto! Hay una familia de Chihuahua, que cuando pasemos por ahí la siguiente vez, que vayamos a visitarlos. [Hey, honey, look at this! There is a family in Chihuahua who says that next time we drive through there, we should visit them.]” And so my mom would yell out stuff [from the kitchen or bedroom] of what to ask them and so would Sonia y Alejandra y pues así fue que todos nos metíamos a chatear con ellos


[and well, that is how we all go in and chat with them]. Just who’s ever online and sees that they’re online, too.

Even though Mr. and Mrs. Topete were from Jalisco and Guanajuato, respectively, the relationship with the Chihuahuan family proved to be durable—at least in cyberspace. This was true because the Topetes, unlike other families who traveled to Jalisco each year, would drive through the El Paso-Juárez border, on through Chihuahua, Durango, and then Jalisco. The other transnational families from the same network would drive through Arizona and cross into Sonora because this route was a shorter distance. However, Mr. Topete felt the drive was less difficult and hot when driving through the Chihuahuan desert as opposed to the Sonoran one. In addition, because they had no family in Chihuahua, a newly made cyber connection now implied having fictive kin in a place they had developed both an attach-ment and curiosity about. The families promised to meet each other in Chihuahua during the Topetes’ next trip to Jalisco.

Other families, who lived in Mexico, for example, created online chatting relationships with various Latino families. Sometimes, the households in Mexico chatted with Latino households who were not necessarily a part of the extended-family network living abroad. For instance, I observed Mexican families chatting online as a unit with families who lived in Peru or Costa Rica. According to these families living in Mexico—and again the eldest child was the key technology broker, the other Latin American families were also chatting as a unit on their end, with questions flying back and forth from each household.

ConclusionThis study affords educators a window into the out-of-school computer prac-tices of urban Latino immigrant students. By understanding how these students serve as technology brokers for their families, any computer education that they receive in schools becomes that much more important, for this knowledge is taken into homes that have many computer-user novices or “digital immi-grants,” as Prensky (2001) states. If schools fail to provide technology educa-tion, many Latino immigrant families will potentially face isolation from one of the most revolutionary technological advances of our time. Thus, schools could do more by providing comprehensive computer courses for parents and families in their home languages as well as discussing implicit aspects about purchasing a computer, setting it up, and acquiring Internet service for it. Because Latino immigrant students are the primary conduits of this information—and until the


computer industry market improves its outreach, teachers and schools serve an important role in giving students knowledge and access to both computer use and the Internet.

In addition to computer access, urban Latino families negotiate the pur-chase and maintenance of their home computers. For children and youth to continue to serve as brokers in this area, they must not only acquire knowl-edge about the different components of a computer (and how Internet ser-vice is provided) but also develop or hone other embedded skills in seeking computer services, such as map-reading skills, navigating directions in large urban centers, communicating in not only English but also in com-puter jargon and then translating this back into Spanish. Once a bilingual member of a transnational network has attended a school or college where technology training was provided and acquired both “cultural” and “social capital” (Bourdieu, 1986) in this area, their experience with personal com-puters translates into “expertise” in the eyes of many urban Latino immi-grant community members; his or her “services” will be called upon and serve as a great benefit to inner-city residents who are unfamiliar with online product sales and where local computer repair services do not yet cater significantly to bilingual Latino immigrants.

It is interesting to note that often in our findings, the eldest sibling in a Latino immigrant home serves as the technology broker. However, more inter-esting is the fact that he or she is the one who potentially remains “in charge” of helping the family continue its computer and Internet usage, bringing home more “bourgeoisie technologies of the information age” (Emmison & Frow, 1998) that will benefit younger siblings and the household even after he or she no longer lives in the same home. The maxim, “Once a broker, always a bro-ker,” seems quite fitting to describe the ongoing role of children and youth who serve in these capacities into adulthood.

Keeping this in mind, the expectations that schools have with regard to computer and Internet use ratchets the use of computers at home in communi-ties where “digital natives” (Prensky, 2001) are less abundant. For example, all of the focal youth in this study believe that the majority of children in their immigrant networks probably do not need a home computer until they reach high school; this was a question we asked them in 2008 as they reflected on the impact of technology in their tightly knit transnational networks. While we disagree with this belief, it is understandable in the context of their local communities where schools did not tend to have sophisticated expectations or use of computers in schools. However, this is not the trend that is found in White middle-class neighborhoods and homes. Often, because of parents’ higher education and income levels, children acquire computer usage skills at


a much younger age—well before high school—and may sometimes feel that their own public schools are not advanced enough—unless, of course, these schools are doing advanced computer-laden projects such as helping students create wikis6 or work with virtual environments similar to Second Life.6 Therefore, it is imperative that administrators and teachers demand more of their campus IT programs because these expectations and exposure to advanced technologies will hopefully gush—and not trickle down—into stu-dents’ urban Latino households and communities, where children will again push their families to acquire technology sooner.

Although second-generation youth were the majority of computer users in the transnational Latino networks we studied, exceptions to this abounded, indicating an inaccurate view of Latino immigrants as technophobic. If any-thing, we found that one of the consumer products that is often least targeted to Latinos is computer technology—possibly because minority or poor communi-ties are not considered the primary users of this technology. Instead, the Internet and personal computer companies cater to the White, Euro-American male participant, long identified as the cyber-citizen on whose ideals the Internet was founded (Fusco, 1998; Harewood & Valdivia, 2005). In spite of not being catered to, and the encumbrances that may ensue in procuring the use of cyber-space as a vehicle for communication, transnational immigrants “find creative ways to appropriate information and communication technologies” (Panagakos & Horst, 2006, p. 114), as we saw in the example of families chatting online across the United States and Latin America as well as having the younger gen-eration bring home such technologies.

Finally, as educators we need to investigate in more detail the ways in which transnational communities use technology on a daily basis and how these practices are embedded in sociocultural contexts. This would greatly inform the way we teach about the World Wide Web and other computer technologies in our inner-city schools. In addition, looking inward at the teacher-educator arena, many preservice programs for teachers emphasize technology use but not in a reflective and integrated way that promotes students’ sophisticated use of ever-changing computer technology. We should prepare teachers to use technology in a powerful and meaningful way in their future classrooms—not in a simple rote-learning fashion. In addition, schools also need to realize that as urban areas prove to draw more immigrants to work in the service sectors of “global cities” (Sassen, 2001), tightly knit immigrant ethnic enclaves continuously develop, refreshed by newcomers. In the case of Latin America, these newcomers will continue to arrive with possibly little experience in the arena of computers and Internet use. This means that urban schools must always be aware of the new influx


of nondigital users, given that many immigrant ethnic enclaves attract those from more modest means and rural backgrounds.

If we are willing to take these measures, then more Latino immigrant stu-dents and their families will acquire and use technology, bridging the gap that is currently leaving behind many communities of color. In addition to urban schools, local community organizations and city offices could partner to address the digital divide in a more tailored and cohesive manner. After all, from our study, we have found that urban Latino immigrants do not have a propensity to dislike or be unattracted to technology; instead, they face obsta-cles related to access that are economic in nature as well as tied to outreach, language, and previous experience.

Acknowledgments

The authors are especially indebted to the transnational Latino families in this study who opened their homes and shared their lives.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received financial support from The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans and the Academy for Teacher Excellence at UTSA.

Notes

1. This U.S. figure can include Internet use at home or work and only includes persons above 18 years of age.

2. The focal youth chose their own pseudonyms; other participants were given pseudonyms.

3. All data on San Pablo are from the 2000 U.S. Census.4. Univisión is a Spanish-language television network in the United States with the

largest Latin American/U.S. Latino audience, founded in 1962 and popularized since the mid-1980s.

5. A “wiki” is a collaborative website developed by a community of users where any user can add or edit content.

6. “Second Life” is “a three-dimensional virtual community created entirely by its membership. Members assume an identity and take up residence in Second Life, creating a customized avatar or personage to represent themselves” and move about/live in this virtual world (Retrieved on April 25, 2011 from http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-second-life.htm).


References

Aranda, E. M. (2006). Emotional bridges to Puerto Rico: Migration, return migra-tion, and the struggles of incorporation. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Benítez, J. L. (2006). Transnational dimensions of the digital divide among Salvadoran immigrants in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Global Networks, 6(2), 181-199.

Berkeley Unified School District. (2005). BUSD School Accountability Report Cards for 2004-2005. Retrieved from http://www.berkeley.k12.ca.us/

Brittain, C. (2002). Transnational messages: Experiences of Chinese and Mexican immigrants in American schools. New York, NY: LFB Scholarly.

Bronack, S. (2006). Learning unplugged: The Internet divide in American schools. Electronic Magazine of Multicultural Education, 8(1). Retrieved from http://www.eastern.edu/publications/emme/2006spring/bronack.pdf

Bryant, A., & Charmaz, K. (2007). The SAGE handbook of grounded theory. Thou-sand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. In John G. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education (pp. 241-258). New York, NY: Greenwood.

Burawoy, M. (2000). Introduction: Reaching for the global. In M. Burawoy, J. A. Blum, S. George, Z. Gille, T. Gowan, L. Haney, M. Klawiter, S. H. López, S. O’Riain, & M. Thayer (Eds.), Global ethnography: Forces, connections, and imaginations in a postmodern world (pp. 1-40). Berkeley: University of California Press.

Chakraborty, J., & Bosman, M. M. (2002). Race, income, and home PC ownership: A regional analysis of the digital divide. Race and Society, 5(2), 163-177.

Clark, K. (2005). Communities with instructional technologies: Giving them what they need, not what you want. Urban Education, 40, 430-445.

Emerson, R. M., Fretz, R. I., & Shaw, L. L. (1995). Writing ethnographic fieldnotes. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press.

Emmison, M., & Frow, J. (1998). Information technology as cultural capital. Australian Universities Review, 41(1), 41-45.

Fairlie, R. W. (2005). Are we really a nation online? Ethnic and racial disparities in access to technology and their consequences. Report for the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. Retrieved from http://www.freepress.net/files/lccrdigitaldivide.pdf

Figueroa, J. L., & Sánchez, P. (2008). Technique, art, or cultural practice? Ethnic epistemology in Latino qualitative studies. In T. P. Fong (Ed.), Ethnic studies research: Approaches and perspectives (pp. 143-177). Lanham, MD: AltaMira.

Fox, S., & Livingston, G. (2007). Latinos online: Hispanics with lower levels of education and English proficiency remain largely disconnected from the Internet [Electronic Version]. The Pew Internet and American Life Project. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2007/Latinos-Online.aspx


Fusco, C. (1998). At your service: Latinas in the global information network. Retrieved from http://archiv.hkw.de/forum/forum1/doc/text/fusco-isea98.html

Gershberg, A. I., Danenberg, A., & Sánchez, P. (2004). Beyond “bilingual” educa-tion: New immigrants and public school policies in California. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press.

Glick Schiller, N., Basch, L., & Szanton Blanc, C. (1992). Transnationalism: A new analytic framework for understanding migration. In N. Glick Schiller, L. Basch, & C. Szanton Blanc (Eds.), Towards a transnational perspective on migration (pp. 1-24). New York, NY: New York Academy of Sciences.

Gorski, P. (2003). Privilege and repression in the digital era: Rethinking the sociopoli-tics of the digital divide. Race, Gender, & Class, 10(4), 145-176.

Guarnizo, L. E. (1998). The rise of transnational social formations: Mexican and Dominican state responses to transnational migration. Political Power and Social Theory, 12, 45-94.

Guarnizo, L. E. (2001). On the political participation of transnational migrants: Old practices and new trends. In G. Gerstle & J. Mollenkopf (Eds.), E pluribus unum? Contemporary and historical perspectives on immigrant political incorporation (pp. 213-263). New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.

Hall, B. L. (1992). From margins to center? Development and purpose of participa-tory research. American Psychologist, 23(4), 15-28.

Harewood, S. J., & Valdivia, A. N. (2005). Exploring Dora: Re-embodied Latinidad on the web. In S. R. Mazzarella (Ed.), Girl wide web (pp. 85-104). New York, NY: Peter Lang.

Hondagneu-Sotelo, P., & Avila, E. (1997). “I’m here but I’m there”: The meanings of Latina transnational motherhood. Gender & Society, 11, 548-571.

Horrigan, J. B. (2008). Pew Internet and American Life Project: Home Broadband Adoption 2008. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2008/Home-Broadband-2008.aspx

Jiménez, R., & Orellana, M. F. (2006, Summer). Flipping the educational script: Teach-ers as learners. California English. Retrieved from http://www.writingproject.org/cs/nwpp/print/nwpr/2334

Johnson, B., & Christensen, L. (2007). Educational research: Quantitative, qualita-tive, and mixed approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

López, N. (2002). Hopeful girls, troubled boys: Race and gender in urban education. New York, NY: Routledge.

Levitt, P. (2001). The transnational villagers. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Maguire, P. (1987). Doing participatory research: A feminist approach. Amherst, MA: The Center for International Education.

Marcus, G. (1995). Ethnography in/of the world system: The emergence of multi-sited ethnography. Annual Review of Anthropology, 24, 95-117.


Marcus, G. (1998). Ethnography through thick and thin. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Menjívar, C. (2000). Fragmented ties: Salvadoran immigrant networks in America. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Monkman, K., Ronald, M., & Théramène, F. D. (2005). Social and cultural capital in an urban Latino school community. Urban Education, 40(1), 4-33.

Olsen, L. (1997). Made in America: Immigrant students in our public schools. New York, NY: The New Press.

Orellana, M. F. (2003, Winter). Responsibilities of children in Latino immigrant homes. New directions for youth development: Understanding the social worlds of immigrant youth, 100, 25-39.

Orellana, M. F., Dorner, L. M., & Pulido, L. (2003). Accessing assets: Immigrant youth’s work as family translators or “para-phrasers.” Social Problems, 50, 505-524.

Orellana, M. F., Reynolds, J., Dorner, L., & Meza, M. (2003b). In other words: Trans-lating or “para-phrasing” as a family literacy practice in immigrant households. Reading Research Quarterly, 38(1), 24.

Panagakos, A. N., & Horst, H. A. (2006). Return to Cyberia: Technology and the social worlds of transnational migrants. Global Networks, 6(2), 109-124.

Park, P. (1999). People, knowledge, and change in participatory research. Manage-ment Learning, 30(2), 141-157.

Phillips, D., & Crowell, N. A. (Eds.). (1994). Cultural diversity and early education: Report of a workshop [Online]. Retrieved from http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=9197&page=R1

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon, 9(5). Retrieved from http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf

Rong, X. L., & Preissle, J. (1998). Educating immigrant students: What we need to know to meet the challenges. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Rumbaut, R. G. (2002). Severed or sustained attachments? Language, identity, and imag-ined communities in the post-immigrant generation. In P. Levitt & M. C. Waters (Eds.), The changing face of home: The transnational lives of the second generation (pp. 43-95). New York, NY: Russell Sage.

Sánchez, P. (2004). At home in two places: Second-generation mexicanas and their lives as engaged transnationals (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of California, Berkeley.

Sánchez, P. (2007a). Cultural authenticity and transnational Latina youth: Constructing a metanarrative across borders. Linguistics and Education, 18(3-4), 258-282.

Sánchez, P. (2007b). Urban immigrant students: How transnationalism shapes their world learning. Urban Review, 39, 489-517.

Sánchez, P. (2008a). Coming of age across borders: Family, gender, and place in the lives of second-generation transnational mexicanas. In R. Márquez & H. Romo


(Eds.), Transformations of la familia on the U.S.–Mexico border (pp. 185-208). Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame Press.

Sánchez, P. (2008b). Transnational students. In J. M. González (Ed.), Encyclopedia of bilingual education (pp. 857-860). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

Sánchez, P. (2009a, Fall). Chicana feminist strategies in a participatory action research project with transnational Latina youth. New Directions for Youth Development, 123, 83-98.

Sánchez, P. (2009b). Even beyond the local community: A close look at Latina youths’ return trips to Mexico. High School Journal, 92(4), 49-66.

Sánchez, P. (2010). “In between Oprah and Cristina”: Urban Latina youth producing a countertext with participatory action research. Social Justice, 36(4), 54-68.

Sassen, S. (2001). The global city: New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Stanton-Salazar, R. D. (2001). Manufacturing hope and despair: The school and kin support networks of U.S.–Mexican youth. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Suárez-Orozco, M., & Páez, M. (Eds.). (2002). Latinos: Remaking America. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Suárez-Orozco, C., & Suárez-Orozco, M. (1995). Transformations: Immigration, family life, and achievement motivation among Latino adolescents. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Thompson, K. (2002). Border crossings and diasporic identities: Media use and leisure practices of an ethnic minority. Qualitative Sociology, 25, 409-418.

Tse, L. (1995). Language brokering among Latino adolescents: Prevalence, attitudes, and school performance. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 17, 180-193.

Weber, R. P. (1990). Basic content analysis (2nd ed.). Newbury Park, CA: SAGE.Wilding, R. (2006). “Virtual” intimacies? Families communicating across transna-

tional contexts. Global Networks, 6(2), 125-142.Wolf, D. (2002). There’s no place like “home”: Emotional transnationalism and the

struggles of second-generation Filipinos. In P. Levitt & M. C. Waters (Eds.), The changing face of home: The transnational lives of the second generation (pp. 254-294). New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.

Bios

Patricia Sánchez, PhD, is an associate professor in the Department of Bicultural-Bilingual Studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio. In her research, she uses a sociocultural lens to examine issues related to globalization, transnationalism, and immigrant students and families.

Malena Salazar, MA, is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Bicultural-Bilingual Studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Her research interests include the identity construction and digital literacies of Latina/o youth.

Sánchez, P. & Salazar, M. (2012). Transnational computer use in urban Latino immigrant communities: Implications for schooling. Urban Education, 47(1), 90 - 116.

Documents