Parents and Struggles of Representation Toward Social Transformation Through Dual-Language Immersion in the Old South

• In Event: 32.052 - More Than White Interests: Dual-Language Immersion and Subverting Whiteness

Abstract

This paper is a critical reflection (Marx & Saavedra, 2013; Pillow, 2003) of journeys, from an educational linguist from a rich religious, ethnic, and spiritual background and a teacher education/language education faculty member who became fluent in Spanish as an adult. First, they are mothers desperate for their children to make the world a kinder, more just place, in part by insuring their children learn language and culture toward cultural bridge-building, not to position them for future financial gains as bilinguals in a still monolingual country. The linguist helped establish one of her district’s first ever DLI programs and shares her struggles in that endeavor. The faculty member reconnected with this old college friend in desperate efforts to find a DLI program for her young children as they were about to move cross-country.

Together they struggle with the question, “DLI for whom,” (Wong, 2006) recognizing the privilege their middle class children enjoy while also seeking ways to interrupt the paradigms of privilege in schools in the U.S., particularly the Old South. They specifically examine the dynamics of power in their school and greater Georgia context, including how Tea Party members managed to shut down a DLI initiative in the district a decade previously and how parents have and have not been recruited for inclusion in this emerging DLI program. They interrogate cases which emerge. For instance, they engage internal PTA arguments regarding whose languages do or do not get to be included on the school’s PTA t-shirt. They also explore how racial policing occurs regarding whose voices are valued in such debates, including the way one of the co-presidents, an African American woman and advocate of DLI for all, endured attempts at whites’ silencing her advocacy of Latinx youth. The authors also engage discussions regarding the impact of cultural representation through the DLI courses, such as whether and how Day of the Dead celebrations are allowed to be observed school-wide and to what extent and how the greater community responds. They work through their struggles of tokenism (Steinberg, 2009) versus making real socially transformative impacts (Anzaldúa, 2002; Author, 2013).

The authors make recommendations for both researchers and parents toward interrupting structures of power to help establish DLI programs which are responsive to all children’s needs (Cervantes-Soon, 2014), not just those of the privileged. They provide nuance in the debate, recognizing the difficult local terrains where change happens in the face of competing forces, from the Tea Party to African American allies who have not traditionally been part of debates surrounding multilingual education. They provide local, organic insights which they hope will be useful for policy and action.

Authors

• G. Sue Kasun, Georgia State University

• Jyoti Hanagud Kaneria