Framing bilingualism within the context of a transnational border: place-based and place-conscious enactments for two kinds of bilingual youth in Laredo, Texas.

In this paper, the bilingualism of local communities and the way that a group of high school teachers discuss and understand bilingualism and biliteracy of two kinds of bilingual youth are examined from a place-based, place-conscious perspective. The high school teacherswant to create a new dual language program for local students from Laredo and students from across the Rio Grande River, Nuevo Laredo. The paper shows how the teachers' language orientations and ideologies informthe ways they view the language capabilities differently for each group of students, favoring academic Spanish and lamenting the language deficits of local Laredo bilingual youth. The paper endswith a recommendation forways to trouble language orientations and ideologies with an eye toward gaining a deeper, more place-conscious understanding of youth bilingualism and how schools and teachers bear responsible for improving conditions for expanding bilingualism of local youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]