Latina/os in rhetoric and composition: Learning from their experiences with language diversity

Latina/os in Rhetoric and Composition: Learning from their Experiences with Language Diversity explores how Latina/o academics' experiences with language difference contributes to their Latina/o academic identity and success in academe while remaining connected to their heritage language and cultural background. Using qualitative data (interviews with ten new and established Latina/o academics), Cavazos addresses how the participants became self-aware of their resilient qualities, such as problem-solving, autonomy, and sense of purpose, which assisted them in identifying strategies to effectively merge identities and languages in academia. One of the major findings in this study focuses on how the participants' knowledge of language difference and their ability to see their identities and languages as merged in academia contributes to their success as Latina/o academics. In order for Latina/os to achieve success in higher education, this study suggests that institutions of higher education and pedagogical approaches must view language and cultural difference as valid ways of making knowledge in the academy. Institutions should not only create spaces that convey a genuine sense of community for Latina/os (i.e., an academic community that values their language strengths and background) but also make efforts to train and hire mentors who recognize the strengths of multilingual students. A better understanding of how Latina/o academics merge identities and languages and how language difference enhances academia results in a multilingual pedagogy that increases faculty and students' understanding of language, rhetoric, and rhetorical strategies. A multilingual pedagogy aims to not only help students become successful writers in academic English, but also encourage them to identify the resilient, rhetorical, and linguistic strategies that will assist them in negotiating diverse contexts. In order to increase the success of Latina/o students in higher education and academia, Cavazos argues that institutions, faculty, and programs should invest in creating opportunities that will help everyone learn from multilingual students' language strengths in order to challenge language hegemony and expand knowledge-making in academia.