| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.1

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to the AHR online. About 293 words from this article are provided below; about 524 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the American Historical Association, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time. AHA members can go to the AHA individual membership section to locate their member numbers.
If you are not a member of the American Historical Association, you can:: • Join the AHA and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the American Historical Review.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the American Historical Review (104.3-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the American Historical Review.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Carlos Kevin Blanton. The Strange Career of Bilingual Education in Texas, 1836–1981. (Fronteras Series, number 2.) College Station: Texas A&M University Press. 2004. Pp. 204. $29.95.
Inspired, as his book's title suggests, by C. Vann Woodward's seminal work on southern segregation (The Strange Career of Jim Crow, first published in 1955), Carlos Kevin Blanton seeks to illuminate present controversies concerning bilingual education through a careful examination of the phenomenon's history in Texas. What is revealed, contrary perhaps to the assumptions of today's "English Only" advocates, is a tradition of bilingual education that was interrupted for much of the twentieth century before its restoration in 1981.	1
This bilingual tradition originated with the work of Spanish missionaries and continued with the ambivalent policies of Mexican authorities in the 1820s and 1830s. Beginning with the establishment of the Republic of Texas, which followed the successful revolt by American Texans against Mexican control, bilingual education under American government remained the rule rather than the exception in both parochial and private schools. Blanton characterizes the bilingual tradition of the nineteenth century as "often informal and muddled" (p. 35) but also "rich and vibrant" (p. 153), affecting and, to a large extent, directed by Tejanos, German Americans, and Czech Americans. Particularly insightful is the use made by the author of a series of mostly handwritten reports by county judges and school superintendents that document the daily struggles with language issues in late nineteenth-century Texas communities. For local ethnic communities, instruction for their children in two languages provided the surest path to academic achievement and assimilation. For many local and some state authorities, bilingual education was, for a time, a necessary prerequisite to sustain public schooling.	. . .

There are about 524 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.