The authors describe a new demographic phenomenon--the settlement of Latino families in areas of the United
States where previously there has been little Latino presence. This New Latino Diaspora places pressures on host
communities, both to develop conceptualizations of Latino newcomers and to provide needed services. These pressures
are particularly felt in schools; in some New Latino Diaspora locations the percentage of Latino students in local
public schools has risen from zero to thirty or even fifty percent in less than a decade. Latino newcomers, of
course, bring their own language and their own cultural conceptions of parenting, education, inter-ethnic relations
and the like.
Through case studies of Latino Diaspora communities in Georgia, North Carolina, Maine, Colorado, Illinois, and
Indiana, the eleven chapters in this volume describe what happens when host community conceptions of and policies
toward newcomer Latinos meet Latinos' own conceptions. The chapters focus particularly on the processes of educational
policy formation and implementation, processes through which host communities and newcomer Latinos struggle to
define themselves and to meet the educational needs and opportunities brought by new Latino students. Most schools
in the New Latino Diaspora are unsure about what to do with Latino children, and their emergent responses are alternately
cruel, uninformed, contradictory, and inspirational. By describing how the challenges of accommodating the New
Latino Diaspora are shared across many sites the authors hope to inspire others to develop more sensitive ways
of serving Latino Diaspora children and families.