Introduction: Language Practices and Processes among Latin Americans in Europe

Abstract

This book covers most of the sociolinguistic issues that have interested us overvarious years of conducting research on Spanish-speaking Latin Americans(SsLA) in Spain and the UK.1 We were able to see lots of commonalities but alsoimportant differences regarding the ways in which this multinational social groupnavigates the structural and material conditions of the different European societiesin which they are present. It is clear that being a ‘Latin American’ has a differentsignificance in different places in Europe. The presence of Latin Americansis recognised in some European countries, while in others they remain invisible.Not all members of this SsLA group come from the same regions (or countries);in fact, some of them have experienced previous migratory journeys. They arenot all from the same social class, they speak Spanish in many different ways,they have organised themselves in varied ways in diaspora (some create socialenclaves and strong networks to remain together, while some others prefer tokeep apart), and they all respond in different ways to what they perceive as hostileenvironments. In sum, as discussed in the following, they navigate the diasporic conditions in various ways. These observations led us to invite colleagues working with the same social group in other regions of Europe. Our aim was to bring together current research on Ss LAs to understand their experiences and the role of languages in their diasporic lives. We wanted to capture the sociolinguistic phenomena under study, considering the advantages, but also the constraints and often exclusion that the subjects have experienced across the main European localities in which they have lived or which they have traversed en route to somewhere else. This includes the cultural meanings they have constructed and some poignant emotional aspects of their lives in specific places along their migratory trajectories, but also the ways in which they deal with the obstacles they have encountered on their journeys.

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ORCID for Adriana Patino: orcid.org/0000-0003-1950-3954

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