Examining Race in Black Immigrants' Adolescents' Literacies Through Diaspora Literacy

• In Event: Clarifying the Role of Race in the Literacies and Englishes of Black Immigrant Youth

Abstract

Scholars increasingly render visible empirical and conceptual analyses of literacy and language practices of Black immigrant youth (Smith, 2019) and immigrant youth from West African countries, in ways that talk back to homogenizing views of “a monolithic West Africa” and “deficit understandings of identities and the heterogeneity of Black immigrant youth” in the United States (Authors, 2017).

The proposed paper extends theoretical approaches of such recent scholarship in a conceptual analysis framing the literacy practices of Black immigrant youth and young adults from West Africa as contemporary enactments of “Diaspora literacy” (Clark, 2009; Johnson, Bryan, & Boutte, 2018; King, 1992).

We assert the necessity of theorizing literacy and language practices of Black immigrant youth as enactments of Diaspora literacy as the ongoing work of designing education research approaches, conceptualizing teaching and teacher education frameworks, and reporting policy outcomes for and with Black immigrant youth that purposefully name, affirm, and build with varied onto-epistemologies of Black immigrant youth, young adults, elders, and communities (Paris, 2019; Salazar Perez & Saavedra, 2017). We envision such work as ever more urgent given increasing immigration of youth and families from West African countries to the United States since 1990 (Roberts, 2005). Moreover, theorizing the literacy and language practices of Black immigrant youth as enactments of Diaspora literacy evokes a stancetaking toward justice at a time of polarizing public discourses and popular-media narratives of immigrant youth and young adults (Authors, 2017).

For example, just over two weeks after the U.S. presidential election in 2016, 80% of more than 10,000 educators reported “heightened anxiety on the part of marginalized students, including immigrants, Muslims, African Americans and LGBT students” (Southern Poverty Law Center, 2016, para. 7), and 40% “heard derogatory language directed at students of color, Muslims, immigrants and people based on gender or sexual orientation” (para. 8). Theorizing literacy and language practices of Black immigrant youth through a lens of Diaspora literacy thus underscores vital contexts of racial identities and racialized experiences of literacy and language practices (Baker-Bell, Butler, & Johnson, 2017). Moreover, attending to literacy practices of Black immigrant youth as Diaspora literacies evokes a “human consciousness” to take back one’s “humanity” from destructive views of “Blackness” (King, 1992, p. 319).

We draw from three data sets in our conceptual analysis: an in-depth interview-based study of civic learning and action-taking of immigrant youth and young adults; a qualitative case study of a university/community-engaged research/practice partnership with an African feminist community-based organization; and a case study of youth literacy activities extending lived experiences in the context of a school-based African Club in a public-school setting in New York City. We offer implications for education researchers, educators, and policymakers in situating Black immigrant youth enacting Diaspora literacies as participants and contributors across schools and communities.

Authors

• Vaughn W.M. Watson, Michigan State University

• Michelle G. Knight-Manuel, Teachers College, Columbia University