Beisbol and Tostones: Constructing Narratives of Puerto Rican Identity in Secondary Level, First Year Spanish Textbooks

Beisbol and Tostones: Constructing Narratives of Puerto Rican Identity in Secondary Level, First Year Spanish Textbooks

Rebecca Sawyer

While new methods of foreign language learning have been developed over the past thirty years that emphasize the importance of cultural context, language textbooks have been slow to adapt. In an increasingly complicated and politicized world, it is especially important for language learning texts to accurately reflect the perspectives of the target cultures. Opportunities for rich discussion of culture are even more important in the context of colonized cultures, with Puerto Rico as the most salient example for Spanish students in the United States. This study builds upon and updates existing research on the cultural messages within first year Spanish textbooks for secondary students with a specific focus on the representation of political perspectives in Puerto Rico. The discourse in six first year, secondary level Spanish texts was analyzed for the amount of information about Puerto Rico, kind of information, and how it is presented to the student. Rather than showing uptake of past recommendations, the results show that the most updated texts are ill suited to address topics that are more complicated than baseball or food.