'American by Paper': Assimilation and Documentation in a Biliterate, Bi-Ethnic Immigrant Community

Calls from policymakers to assimilate immigrants through English literacy have grown urgent. Yet the 2007 U.S. Census has reported that one in five U.S. residents speaks a language other than English at home. What's more, new immigrants often settle in long-standing immigrant communities in which these non-English languages are the lingua franca. These demographic trends call for a reconceptualization of the problematic relationship of literacy to immigrant assimilation. To whom, precisely, are immigrants assimilating, especially in multi-ethnic communities? And how exactly does literacy, especially biliteracy, shape this process? Through an ethnographic investigation of how two different immigrant groups form biliterate partnerships in the quest for legal immigration papers, this essay examines how literacy and assimilation function in light of the changing writing demands of contemporary immigrant life. (Contains 8 notes.)