Spanish-speaking family members and non-Spanish speakers’ supportive and unsupportive communication for Latina/o/x language brokers

Past research with Latina/o/x adolescent samples has found that language brokering can be a positive experience, but at times, stressful. Although many factors can contribute to these different brokering experiences, the ways in which Spanish-speaking family members and non-Spanish speakers support (or do not support) Latina/o/x adolescent children during their brokering exchanges can be a contributing factor. To better understand how Spanish-speaking family members and non-Spanish speakers can support young brokers, we interviewed 31 Latina/o/x early adolescent brokers. Our thematic analysis revealed that when brokers reported on family, the most prevalent type of supportive communication received was informational supportive communication. Brokers also reported that their family engaged in unsupportive emotional communication, but when family provided supportive communication, brokers felt efficacious and proud for helping their family. In addition, most brokers reported receiving informational supportive communication from non-Spanish speakers. Nevertheless, some brokers also reported that non-Spanish speakers provided limited informational supportive communication (i.e., absence of supportive communication). Our findings reveal what supportive and unsupportive communication might look like for brokers and how supportive communication can contribute to positive experiences for brokers.

How language brokering relates to empathy and psychological well-being

Language brokering often brings children in close, intimate interactions with parents, which, over time, may help them understand their parents and others in the form of empathy. Specifically, frequency and feelings about language brokering may relate to greater empathy. In addition, language brokering may have an indirect effect on psychological well-being via empathy. For this study, 459 language brokers ( M age = 21.36, Female = 80%) completed an online questionnaire about frequency and feelings about language brokering, empathy, and psychological well-being. There were direct effects of language brokering burden, language brokering role reversal, and language brokering efficacy, but not frequency of language brokering, on empathy. We found an indirect association of language brokering burden and language brokering efficacy, to depressive symptoms through empathy. Findings indicate that empathy may play a role in how language brokering relates to psychological well-being.

"If We Don't Do It For Our Parents, Then Who Will?" Afghan Youth as Cultural/Language Brokers

This paper looks at the role that immigrant adolescents play as cultural/language brokers for their families. Research shows that immigrant adolescents play exceptionally supportive roles as cultural/language brokers for their families during the early years of settlement. There is limited research examining this phenomenon of cultural brokering by immigrant adolescents in Canada, and perhaps no particular research focusing on Afghan youth. The paper presents insights from nine Afghan youth who through their cultural/language brokering are important sources of support for their families during settlement. It will also include a compilation of previous literature on this area. Despite the struggles of negotiating with their role as cultural/language brokers in the early years, the youth generally shared positive experiences of being able to be a source of assistance for their families. Additionally, the participants viewed their role as a cultural/language broker to be a part of their familial responsibility

"If We Don't Do It For Our Parents, Then Who Will?" Afghan Youth as Cultural/Language Brokers

This paper looks at the role that immigrant adolescents play as cultural/language brokers for their families. Research shows that immigrant adolescents play exceptionally supportive roles as cultural/language brokers for their families during the early years of settlement. There is limited research examining this phenomenon of cultural brokering by immigrant adolescents in Canada, and perhaps no particular research focusing on Afghan youth. The paper presents insights from nine Afghan youth who through their cultural/language brokering are important sources of support for their families during settlement. It will also include a compilation of previous literature on this area. Despite the struggles of negotiating with their role as cultural/language brokers in the early years, the youth generally shared positive experiences of being able to be a source of assistance for their families. Additionally, the participants viewed their role as a cultural/language broker to be a part of their familial responsibility

Feelings about language brokering

Young language brokers have a complex emotional relationship with the translation and interpreting tasks that they engage in for their families and communities. Whereas they often report feeling happy, useful and proud of themselves for being able to contribute to their families’ well-being, they also struggle with frustration, pressure from their loved ones, and cognitive and emotional burdens. This study aims to map the evolution of feelings regarding language brokering among young adults and to reveal the effects that formal interpreting education might have in this process. For these purposes, it examines the narratives of 75 self-identified former and/or current language brokers who are registered in an undergraduate interpreting program in the United States. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of these narratives (collected at three different points during their course of study) indicate that the participants feel more positively than negatively about their brokering tasks and that positive emotions increase overall throughout their interpreter education (with a noticeable peak halfway through the program). These analyses also reveal how triggers for positive and negative emotion shift through time: whereas their enhanced skills contribute to positive feelings, poor working conditions and brokering settings beyond their immediate families become new stressors.

Assessment in Spanish heritage language programs

Spanish heritage language learners (HLLs) are heterogeneous in nature. Thus, how can we assess these students? Most of the literature on this has been on placement exams (Polinsky & Kagan, 2017, among others), but the focus of this article is on assessment in Spanish heritage courses. Placement test results should be indicators of what should be included in the curriculum. One of the main challenges is the lack of the following components: specific proficiency indicators for HLLs, consensus in defining key concepts, understanding dialect variation, assessment for measuring linguistic skills, and finally research on HLLs’ assessment (Malone, Kreeft Peyton, & Kim, 2014). Thus, assessment is the biggest challenge in HL education due to the dominant monolingual ideologies, so formative assessment practices are recommended to confront them by allowing HLLs to negotiate their linguistic identities via multilingual perspectives (King, Liu, & Schwedhelm, 2018). What are specific tools or activities to negotiate these? Personal narratives of US Latinos were collected by Carreira and Beeman (2014) for the sake of reflections of HLLs as language brokers. González-Davies (2004, 2018) also mentions the importance of peer-to-peer strategies for translation competence. These projects can also become group projects, like the manifestos implemented by Moreno and MacGregor-Mendoza (2019) in a course in which language, culture, and community are the goals. All these activities are examples of the kinds of assessment that may be effective in the heritage classroom and may guide their instructors. The goal of this article is to suggest activities to connect HLLs with their communities at the same time that their learning gains are assessed in terms of language proficiency.