Letters from the Fair City: A Rhetorical Conception of Literacy

Abstract

This article suggests that literacy development in immigrant, refugee, and other historically marginalized communities can be understood as a response to rhetorical struggles in contexts of civic life. To illustrate this “rhetorical conception of literacy,” the article examines a collection of anti-immigrant letters published in a Midwestern newspaper between 1985 and 1995 and the responses to these by a group of Southeast Asian Hmong refugee writers. The essay explores the relationships of content, form, language, and audience in the two sets of letters to show how the anti-immigrant rhetoric became the basis for new forms of public writing in the Hmong community.

Journal
College Composition and Communication
Published
2004-12-01
DOI
10.58680/ccc20044042
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Citation Context

Cited by in this index (2)

  1. Reflections: A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric
  2. Reflections: A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric

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