Brokering Tareas

Book excerpt: Provides concrete examples of homework mentorship and positive academic interventions among immigrant families. Brokering Tareas examines a grassroots literacy mentoring program that connected immigrant parents with English language mentors who helped emerging bilingual children with homework and encouraged positive academic attitudes. Steven Alvarez gives an ethnographic account of literacies practices, language brokering, advocacy, community-building, and mentorship among Mexican-origin families at a neighborhood afterschool program in New York City. Alvarez argues that engaging literacy mentorship across languages can increase parental involvement and community engagement among immigrant families, and he offers teachers and researchers possibilities for rethinking their own practices with the communities of their bilingual students.