ABSTRACT
Chicago is a global city. That is, its economy is linked globally to other world cities
in an increasingly interconnected, globalized world. Globalization as a process,
however, can mean many things: a push for free market economic practice across
the globe, the spread of American cultural images through media and products, or a
growing sense of Western responsibility for economic and political effects
on people and the environment worldwide. Some treat “global” as a socio-
logical term expressing the blended or hybrid nature of people, goods and cul-
tural practices that has resulted from the dissolution of traditional boundaries
in terms of gender, nationality, ethnicity, and politics. Yet globalization
also appears to be realigning peoples into new ethnic, class, and religious
groups. This volume focuses on Spanish-speaking peoples as ethnic groups in
the United States, specifically Chicago. The companion volume to this
book, Ethnolinguistic Chicago: Language and Literacy in the City’s Neighborhoods (Farr, 2004), focused on a variety of other populations in this context.