“So, If You Want to Really Hurt Me, Talk Badly About My Language”: Latina/o Teachers and Linguistic Microaggressions, Implications for Pedagogy and Practice

• In Event: Gutter Rainbows and Concrete Roses: Utilizing Community Cultural Wealth to Find Beauty in the Hideous

Abstract

Chester Pierce and his colleagues (1978) first defined racial microaggressions as a covert form of racism that powerfully impacts the lives of People of Color, as “subtle, stunning, often automatic, and non-verbal exchanges which are ‘put downs’ of blacks by offenders” (p. 66). Delgado and Stefancic (1992) elaborate describing microaggressions as “subtle nuances and code-words – the body language, averted gazes, exasperated looks” (p. 1283). Covert forms of racism, such as these, are most prevalent in today’s post-Civil Rights society (Bonilla-Silva, 2001). Research on racial microaggressions has demonstrated that many People of Color experience racial battle fatigue as a result, impacting psychosocial, physiological and behavioral stress responses (Smith, 2008).

One way Latinas/os experience racial microaggressions is through private discourse that attacks bilingual education, bilingualism and immigration, all which operate as code words for Latina/o (Trucios-Haynes, 2000). For this paper, I refer to such racial microaggressions as linguistic microaggressions. This work builds upon a multi-year project where twenty-six bilingual students produced thirteen short films on their daily language practices. These data were then used as a tool in three informal teacher focus groups . The focus group participants discussed the implications of these films to their teaching practices and several Latina/o participants briefly mentioned instances of linguistic microaggressions, in which they felt the need to shield and hide their non-English speaking family and their own bilingual speaking abilities. In this particular paper, I am interested in how these Latina/o teachers interpret linguistic microaggressions to inform pedagogy and teaching practices with their bilingual students.

Delgado Bernal (2002) argues for a framework to validate Students of Color as holders and creators of knowledge; I extend this framework to teachers. Community cultural wealth (Yosso, 2005) furthers this framework by offering a lens to examine the assets that Students and Teachers of Color bring to the classroom. How can we view the experiences of Latina/o teachers’ with linguistic microaggressions as a source of linguistic capital?

This phase of the project includes one-on-one interviews with five participants from the focus groups who identify as Latina/o and mentioned instances of linguistic microaggressions. The interview will explore specific experiences of linguistic microaggressions from an intersectional perspective and how they inform pedagogy. Initial findings suggest that linguistic microaggressions elicit complex reactions and reflections about pedagogy and practice. These include: (a) the connection between language, class and race, (b) the impact of teacher experiences to classroom practices, and (c) the dialectical relationship between viewing bilingualism as a resource and/or a disadvantage.

Racial microaggression research has focused on the experiences of Students of Color in higher education, Scholars of Color on white-majority campuses, cross-racial counseling relationships and articulating racial battle fatigue (Smith, et.al., 2007; Solórzano, 1998; Solórzano, et.al., 2002; Constantine, 2007; Smith, 2008). There is, however, limited research examining the impact of microaggressions on Teachers of Color and how this influences pedagogy and practice. This research begins to fill this gap and explore how we, as teacher of color, learn from microaggressions.

Author

• Elexia Reyes McGovern, University of California - Los Angeles