In Sista, speak! Sonja Lanehart presents the language and literacy autobiographies of three generations of African American women. These women tell the stories of their education and aspirations, focusing on how their literacy and language were influenced by social, economic, and political forces within school, family and community. Lanehart interprets the rich descriptions in their stories by examining the ideological perspectives of “experiences and cultures and ecologies” that shaped the women's views of themselves and their worlds” (p. 29).

Lanehart introduces the narratives with a story of how her teachers' emphasis on “good” English prompted her to “constantly correct the way my parents or others in my family spoke” (16). The women's stories highlight the complex role of language, literacy, and schooling in the lives of all members of our literate society, but especially in the lives of those who have been marginalized by the racist policies and structures, overt and hidden, that exist in our educational institutions. Excerpts from published works of Black female authors introduce each section of the book, adding an extra layer of richness to this study. These stories invite teachers to reconsider the ways we respond to the language, literacy experiences and opportunities of learners. They invite linguists and anthropologists to consider further the impact of literacy, language, and schooling on all members of society.

Lanehart's introduction is a highlight of the book as it explores various perspectives on the relationship among race, language, and education. In her conclusion, Lanehart acknowledges the complexities she discovered: “We just can't seem to let go of who we know we are – culturally and linguistically rich – how we are seen by the majority not like us – dumb, ignorant, lazy, shiftless – we are treated socially, politically and educationally – disenfranchised, dispossessed, disinherited – nor can we embrace who we want to be or should be – acknowledged, respected, valued and vindicated – just because we are all human no matter what our cultural, ethnic and linguistic differences are” (223).

In Part 1, Lanehart presents transcripts of oral and written narratives by five members of her family, revealing their insights into education, language, literacy, and personal goals. We hear from Maya, the oldest of the five, mother and grandmother of the other women. Maya grew up in the segregated South, didn't finish high school, and “had the least amount of education” and “the most difficulty life” (22) of all the participants. Maya wished for a better education: “I could use my language right and … write letters and put 'em in the right sentences and whatever…. I don't know all that, how to do that” (38). Yet according to Lanehart, Maya “is most comfortable with who she is and where she is in life” (22) of all the other narrative voices we come to know. To her granddaughter, she is “the most resilient woman I have ever known” (22).

Grace and Reia, Maya's two daughters, represent the next generation. Grace, Lanehart's mother, is central to the study because the author had “most interactions with her on the subject of language and uses of literacy” and “because she is most concerned about these issues” (23). Although Grace code-switches to “sound proper” depending on her audience, she does not want to forget where she came from and considers that some people she knows use linguistic styles that are “pretentious, snippety, mechanical, haughty, White” (23). Grace yearns for an education she never got: “We didn't have a lot of subjects that a lot of kids had as far as the kids went to private school and the children went to White school” (64). Grace wonders what influences an enabling teacher would have had on her life: “I feel teachers should try to find out why children are not doing well in class” (153).

Reia, Grace's half-sister and Lanehart's aunt, has the most education of her generation. Yet, Lanehart reports, her sound is “distinctly Southern” (25). She worked for a bank and took a junior college program in architectural drafting, but she wanted to help “people who were hurting and needed to be loved” (24). She therefore completed a college degree in psychology. She states her personal goals: “I would like to write a few books in the field of behavior and social science. I want to one day build a foundation that will be a solution to the declining Black community” (88). As the youngest of Maya's eight children, Reia had family support and teachers who encouraged her to “to see her self worth and strength” (167).

Deidra and Sonja, the author, represent the third generation. Deidra, Sonja's younger sister, was raised by her paternal grandparents and later moved in with Grace when Sonja went off to college. Grace “made Deidra aware of her problems” and constantly “corrected” her. As a result, Deidra struggled with her self-image and attitudes about her literacy and language. Deidra “is uncomfortable in situations where talking ‘proper’ might be expected” (26). At the same time, Deidra has specific goals and the influence of a supportive professor: “I wanna be able to do the things that she can do. She get up in front of the class and it's like she just had it together and that kinda made me want to strive more … give a little more into my studies … to do better” (100). Diedra was the one participant who admitted to having a literacy problem. Through her analysis of Diedra's stories, Lanehart reconsidered her own perceptions about Deidra's views of herself and literacy.

Sonja, the author/researcher, currently assistant professor of English language studies and linguistics at the University of Georgia, is the first in her family to earn a Ph.D. Although she speaks African American English, this ability is rarely acknowledged by other family members, who comment, “Oh she's all proper on us” (115). Because of this prestige, her English is never corrected. She believes that “acceptance of the indoctrination of schooling” (28) influenced the ways in which she uses language.

In Part 2, Lanehart interprets each participant's attitudes, self-identities, and most important, the attitudes of others in response to each woman's goals. We come to understand how each participant established her unique literacy and educational history. We learn about the data that Lanehart collected to interpret the influences of the language, literacy, and schooling experiences on the lives of each family member.

The design of the study is explained in a final section called “Notes” that establishes the research context. It might be helpful to read the Notes section as well as the Appendices before reading the analysis in Part 2, because they prove very helpful for understanding many references discussed earlier in the book We learn about the contexts in which Lanehart collected oral data and how she used these data to designate features of African American English. She documents how she collected the participants' written data by sending questionnaires and requesting copies of their letters, essays, and creative writing. After analyzing the written samples, Lanehart conducted individual oral interviews, asking her participants to respond to specific quotations expressing various views about African American and “standard” English. Sometimes as we read the stories in the first part of the book, we are distracted by questions that become clear later. We still wonder why some of the texts include representations of oral dialect features and others do not, and why some written samples include unconventional spellings, punctuation, and grammatical forms and not others.

Lanehart gives her reader much to think about. The eloquent voices of five women explore their lives, their literacy identities, their educational autobiographies, and their “possible selves.” Perhaps Lanehart's goal in including unconventional features in the text is to make visible the contrast between the beautiful and expressive language of the participants and the linguistic stereotypes that label certain features as “poor” English. We wonder if we might have learned more about their personal literacy histories from written materials more relevant to their daily lives. The reading and writing samples are similar for each participant even though their uses of literacy outside of the study are quite different.

Lanehart's decision to start with the women's stories and end with her research framework may reflect her own research journey to see a “bigger picture, a better picture – a holistic picture in the issues surrounding why I do what I do.” She writes, “As I was going through the data one day after being overwhelmed by all the work I had done … and all the possibilities it held, I suddenly realized there were no easy answers…. Some of the questions I asked did not fit neatly into the categories I delineated … I was going about this wrong, and doing it in a way I had argued against. Yes we can talk about language apart from literacy and vice versa. But what would be the point here? In my context, they are together. They are together because I am interested in something bigger than language, bigger than literacy” (208).

In Sista, speak!, Lanehart has “rendered visible” the voices and lives of women who are “conspicuously absent from major studies in most disciplines.” The stories of five African American women raise far-reaching issues and questions for language educators and researchers. Lanehart remarks early on, “I believe there is a relationship between confidence and literacy, confidence and language. Our perceptions of our language (and literacy) are integrated with our perceptions of ourselves. Because of that, when we talk about language and literacy we should also talk about identity and goals and possible selves … since they are at stake – or at risk” (28).

This is an orientation that teachers at all levels of schooling must take seriously. The belief that there is only one kind of appropriate oral and written English for classrooms and schools, including university settings, continues to permeate our culture of schooling. With such a prevalent view, the educational futures of women such as those whose voices we hear in Sista, speak! remain problematic.

As language and literacy usage are treated as correct or incorrect, proper or vernacular, language users must make decisions about the ways language becomes a marker of social identity. When scholars explore how people learn language and literacy, the influences of their personal attitudes and the influences of ideology often are not addressed. Personal attitudes and self-images involving language and culture are as important as any attempt to discover specific methods to teach language and literacy. The social cultural context of schooling with all its ramifications becomes the curriculum within which a learner is embedded. The beliefs and language policies of teachers, materials, programs, and schools cannot be separated from language learning. Early experiences, and how they are interpreted, reach beyond schools into families and communities and follow learners throughout their lives. Sista, speak! helps us understand this and much more.