El impacto sociolingüístico de la nueva situación triglósica en la zona fronteriza norte México-Estados Unidos; sobre los niños indígenas migrantes

Abstract

The new triglossic situation that has arisen in border areas between the United States and Mexico —the encounter of Spanish; the Indian languages and English— leads us to a series of important sociolinguistic reflections since we are dealing with non-traditional Indian languages in these areas which have been transported from the Southwest of Mexico. This field study was carried out in 1994 and consisted of following several groups of migrating Mixtec groups from the towns in Oaxaca which “export” labor to Tijuana and Valles de San Quintin in Baja California and to the Fresno-Madera area in California. The piece of research evolved around documenting this dynamic new situation and in observing daily use and functions of the three languages; as well as bilingual education programs for 7-14 year olds on both sides of the border. Special attention has been paid to diverse educational problems fueled by the migration of Indian children to areas where their native languages are not spoken.