• WORLD VIEW• It is important to consider that parts of the cultural or natural heritage

are of outstanding interest and therefore need to be preserved as part of the world heritage of mankind as a whole.

• Linguistic domains of heritage competence

• Maintaining Spanish in the United States: Steps Toward the Effective Practice of Heritage Language Re-acquisition/development (Valdes & Fishman, 2008)

• Contact and Contracting Spanish (Zapata, Sanchez,Toribio, 2005)• Bilingualism, heritage language learners, and SLA research:

Opportunities lost or seized? (Valdes, 2005)• Current Issues in Heritage Language Acquisition (Montrul, 2010)

• Heritage languages• Literate students• Unique stories• Process of schooling• Education• Social & economic aspects

• Young adults in the ages between 18-25• 20-25 participants• Graduates of “Cesar Chavez High School”, have attended all four

years of high school.• Heritage Speakers of Spanish• Contact through personal knowledge or “snowball method”

(Cornelius,1982)• Should a participant withdraw, all data provided by that participant will

be excluded• Identities of individuals will remain confidential

• McNair Program/Sponsors• Dr. Pucci• Family

Please contact Dr. PucciUniversity of Wisconsin, MilwaukeeCurtin Hall 525PO Box 413Milwaukee, WI 53201

pucci@uwm.edu or geg@uwm.edu

CONCEPTUAL METHODOLOGY

The project will take a mixed methodological approach.Three part phenomenological interviews:1. The life histories of young adult Spanish heritage language speakers2. Details of the phenomenon under study as experienced3. Reflections on the meanings of such experiences•All interviews will be audiotaped for transcription and analysis.•Each interview will take approximately 45-60 minutes.•A domain analysis will be used to sort the data into multiple categories, allowing a portrait to emerge that is reflective of the “big picture” of the systems and issues involved in the phenomenon.

•There will be an oral production task, and a written acceptability judgment task.•The oral measure will be individually administered, while the written task will be administered in small groups.•Mean percentages will be calculated, and specific components of language will be analyzed.•Obtaining a more complete picture

Participant 1 was born and raised in Milwaukee, but with Mexican heritage. Participant 1 school attended K4-K5 Bruce Guadalupe Community School, elementary and middle school in Prince of Peace Catholic School, 7th and 8th grade in Holy Wisdom Academy, ninth grade and partial tenth grade in Thomas More High School and finally tenth to senior year in Advanced Language & Academic Studies (ALAS) High School. The participant is currently attending University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. All K-5 through Thomas More High School, student attended catholic monolingual school with predominantly heritage speaking students.

Participant 2 was born in Leon, Guanajuato Mexico attended K-5 in Mexico speaking Spanish only. Then, participant was brought to the Milwaukee, Wisconsin and attended St. Anthony’s Pre-School Catholic School. He was “thrown in there” referring that the participant was placed in a monolingual program without knowing any English. Participant went to school from first grade to fourth grade and then returned back to Mexico to continue fifth and sixth grade. As a fifth and sixth grader, the participant did not know how to write and read Spanish. However, he was able to adapt and performed great in school. Participant returned back to Milwaukee entering seventh grade in Holy Wisdom Academy and had to rapidly accustom himself. It took him a month to adapt to English since the school prohibited students to speak Spanish and among friends he still socialized in Spanish. When entering high school, he attended Advanced Language and Academic Studies (ALAS) High School and although he did not have much education in Spanish, he still received a five in the Advanced Placement Exam.

Participant 3, attended K-5, first and second grade in Mexico. He was also born in Mexico. He arrived to Milwaukee at age of eight and attended Allen-Field Elementary School in the bilingual program. The participant was in the United States third, fourth and fifth grade. Then he returned back to Mexico to continue 6th and 7th grade. When returning to Milwaukee, he entered eighth grade in the bilingual program in Kosciuszko Middle School. Both in Allen-Field and Kosciuszko, students were taught one week in Spanish and one week in English reading and writing each language separately. Participant 3, would read in Spanish since he was given books. He continued his studies from ninth grade to eleventh grade in South Division High School, finished twelfth grade in Advanced Language and Academic Studies (ALAS) High School.

•Spoke Spanish at home with family members; in terms who they socialized with it depended.•Understood the importance in maintaining their heritage language.•Emerging themes (9/25)

VALDES, G. (2005). Bilingualism, heritage language learners, and sla research: Opportunities lost or seized?. The Modern Language Journal.Zapata, G., Sanchez, L., & Toribio, A. (2005). Contact and contracting Spanish. International

Journal of Bilingualism, 9(3 & 4), 377-395. Retrieved from http://ijb.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/9/3-4/377Valdes, G., Fishman, J., Chavez, R., & Perez, W. (2008). Maintaining Spanish in the united

states: Steps toward the effective practice of heritage language re acquisition/development. American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese, 91(1), 004-024. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20063620

EVENT OR RESEARCH PROBLEMWhen populations immigrate to a different country it is possible for them to experience heritage language loss due to adaptation to a new culture, social forces, or simply as a result of advancement in the societally dominant language. However, that is not always the case for all heritage speakers. This study focuses on the heritage (Spanish) language maintenance and loss of young adults of ages 18 to 25 who graduated from a small urban high school with a Latino core curriculum aimed at maintaining bilingualism despite situations or circumstances influencing their heritage language maintenance.

HERITAGE LANGUAGE MAINTENANCEUniversity-Wisconsin Milwaukee

Gladys Gonzalez, Health SciencesMentor Sandra Liliana Pucci, Ph.D Associate

Professor of Linguistics

WORLD VIEW

PHILOSOPHY

THEORY

PRINCIPLES

RECRUITMENT/PARTICIPANTS

METHODOLOGY

FINDINGS

ACKOWLEDGEMENTS

How individual situations and circumstances influence heritage language maintenance and development? RESULTS

REFERENCES

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION