January 2015

January 8

I am currently preparing for start writing chapter 4, about the internet context, and the practices and skills that Latino/Immigrant youth develop as they interact within this space. A space that is interconnected and networked. A unique ecosystem that has been changing fast, and that at the moment of the fieldwork has become mainstream among youth.

Participatory culture, new media literacies, and informal learning,

the worlds which a group of university students constructed for themselves through their choices of online resources and practices.

bridging -- not between white and Latino populations, but between minority populations (hip hop) and between different global populations (anime, manga).

a more diverse, multicultural society, which does not simply depend on a unified dominant culture into which the immigrant population can be assimilated.

what role these cultural materials play -- in distinguishing youth from their parent's culture, in forging ties with other youths who come from different cultural backgrounds -- and the ways they do or do not aid assimilation in ways which are institutionally valued.

cultural forms within other minority communities

Rebecca Black discusses some of these bridge-building potentials in her book on adolescents and fan fiction online, seeing anime fandom as a space where Asian contributors may interact more fully with dominant groups which shared their same tastes and interests.

what these youth are culturally doing, as much as "bridging," especially in terms of visual and music cultures. I would love to explore deeply this concept and use it.

illuminate the complexity of the assimilation process of contemporary immigrant youth in the U.S, especially, as you notice, the incorporation process to a new country in ways that are not institutionally valued.