the political topography of Spanish and English: the view from a New York Puerto Rican neighborhood

This article suggests that people build their sense of language around relationships as much as they build relationships around language. For inner‐city New York Puerto Ricans, using English with one another and with black neighbors is a different experience from using English with middle‐class whites. Bilinguals also construct ways to “share” Spanish with black neighbors whether or not those neighbors actually speak Spanish; men and women have different strategies for doing this. The linguistic ease with which Puerto Ricans and blacks form relations stands in sharp contrast to the linguistic risks that attend Puerto Rican relations with middle‐class whites.