Taking stock at the beginning of this new century, it is clear that educational systems, including foreign language classrooms, will have to address a new and growing segment of the population of the USA, the bilingual community. According to the 2000 US Census information, almost 11% of Americans were born outside of the USA. In some states, the number is higher; for example, it is close to 26% in California. Due to migration, the processes of nationalism and federalism, the need for education, commerce, intermarriage, and other factors (Grosjean [1982]), languages in contact are becoming the norm rather than the exception, leading to increased bilingualism (Appel and Muysken [1987]).

The student population: toward a description

Speakers living in households that use more than one language at a high level of proficiency are considered bilinguals – although the term, bilingual, has many definitions and the concept of a bilingual individual as equally proficient in all aspects of two languages and cultures may be more myth than reality (Valdés [2000]). Various terms have been applied to bilingual L2 students. Home-background speakers and heritage learners are the terms used in this chapter to refer to those speakers who emigrated with their parents or were born to émigré families and who have a language of “a particular family relevance other than English” (Fishman [2001, p. 81]).