Mexicanas at La Clase Mágica

Abstract

This chapter introduces the research site and methodology used for the exploration of the narrative corpus in this study. The first section focuses on the research site, La Clase Mágica (Vásquez, 2003a), a bilingual/bicultural after-school program aimed at satisfying the educational and linguistic needs of Mexican and Native American communities in San Diego. The second section specifically addresses the challenges I came across in the field as a white European Andalusian speaker of Spanish. The third section discusses the elicitation techniques used during the interview to create the corpus of narratives about language experiences in Southern California, as well as how the transcription process was undertaken. This chapter concludes by illustrating the process of data selection and creation of the corpus of narratives of language experiences in this study.