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Immigrant Identity: Code Switching among Kenyans in Upstate New York
Mokaya Bosire
44-52 (complete pdf)
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Immigrant Kenyans in the US have come into contact with new and diverse experiences and are forced to adopt strategic ways to accommodate their new circumstances. At issue is how to fashion and/or maintain a unique identity of Kenyanness in America while preserving the integrity of the group's uniqueness as Kenyan Americans. This unique way of being can be seen as a particular type of Discourse, the Discourse of Kenyanness. Code switching among the target group is part of this discourse and constitutes a microcosm of the Kenyan immigrants search for identity in the Diaspora given the power differentials in the society and generally as a minority response to the US dominant culture.



Published in:
Selected Proceedings of the 35th Annual Conference on African Linguistics: African Languages and Linguistics in Broad Perspectives
edited by John Mugane, John P. Hutchison, and Dee A. Worman

Table of contents

ISBN 978-1-57473-410-2 library binding
v + 283 pages
publication date: 2006
published by Cascadilla Proceedings Project, Somerville, MA, USA

Printed edition: $280.00



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