In the Latino community of Carpenteria, California, literacy is interwoven with all aspects of life. From storytelling in Spanish-speaking children"s peer groups to communication between Latino families and the school, this community reveals the cultural strengths of the people as they forge new identities in a different language and with varied socio-cultural demands. Their awareness of personal and cultural history sustains the families in creating the optimum learning environment for their children in the home, school and community. Based on a study of the Latino community in Carpenteria, this book identifies the intricate relationships among Latino families as they build a sociopolitical community to bridge family and school alliances. It also looks at how they extend their learning from the social networks to the family arena to the personal and, in reverse, represent their protean responses to diversity and adversity in their lives.