ABSTRACT
Research on bilinguals out of school has rarely grappled with the complexity present in El Barrio. In the past, longitudinal studies of bilinguals have often been case studies of individual middle-class children in nuclear families, often the children of researchers. Differences in bilingual proficiency among children of different families are to be expected, but differences within families may be more surprising, particularly to those teachers who teach sisters and brothers in different classes or years. Incorrect assessments will result if the bilingualism of lower working-class children who are considered non-White and who come from territories that have been politically subjugated by the United States is judged by a standard based on European, White, and/or middle-class immigrants of a previous generation. In addition, being bilingual has demonstrated cognitive assets even when the children are more proficient in one language than the other, as Hakuta's research with lower-class Puerto Rican children in Connecticut has substantiated.
