Translanguaging as a Gateway to Black Immigrant Collegians' Leadership

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

Abstract

Previous research suggested that of those Black students attending selective U.S. colleges, first- or second- generation African immigrants comprised nearly a third (Massey, Mooney, Torres, & Charles, 2007). While research frames the involvement of Black immigrant collegians as distinctly different than African American peers as it pertains to family goals, relationships, ethnic identity, and academic achievement (Benson, 2006; Rumbaut, 1994; Waters, 1994), little is known about the ways in which the Black immigrant collegians experience the perceptions of others about their literacy achievement in the academy.

We applied CRIT walking in concert with translanguaging (Garcia, 2009; Hughes & Giles, 2010) to examine the epistemological perspectives of eight second generation immigrant African male youth collegians experiencing structural placism (Giles & Hughes, 2009) yet using academic literacies (Wingate, 2015) while attending a predominantly white institution. Structural placism is “those compulsory restrictions, duplicity, and complicity simply due to where one is located in an academic space. It is described by a historical meta-narrative that defines a particular institution, the people who work or study at those institutions, and an academic space” (Giles and Hughes, 2009, p. 693).

The narrative inquiry study uses personal experiences as a method of ethnographic research among second generation African immigrant youth collegians. The collegiate life stories of eight participants experiencing structural placism are described and analyzed. Participants’ narratives about family racial and gendered socialization and researcher field notes are presented to understand the process of navigating academic and social spaces within varied contexts on campus. A three-dimensional narrative inquiry process (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000) was applied to focus on participants’ leadership and social interactions; past, present and future lived experiences for continuity; and situational context for the purpose of restorying their narratives in a chronological sequence (Ollerenshaw & Crenshaw, 2002). In this instance, narrative inquiry is applied to demonstrate how participants responded to the effects of the campus racial climate. Participants’ narratives were deconstructed through applying interrogating dichotomies (Czarniawska, 2004) and analytical strategies to detail emergent themes, which provided subjective meaning to the stories presented (Huber & Whelan, 1999).

Eight second generation African immigrant men collegians participated in this study. Purposeful sampling criteria required the following: (a) self-identifying African immigrant collegian, (b) PWI attendee, and (c) held leadership positions in predominantly white organizations. Participants attended Cotton University (CU), a public predominantly white institution in West Texas, where of the 32,456 students, only 6% of those enrolled are of African descent. Students participated in two open-ended, audio-taped interviews lasting 60– 90 minutes. Emergent themes included: (a) building academic enclaves and; (b) owning linguistic worth. Participants spoke of creating spaces to engage in academic studies and the value of being multilingual in aiding with being in organizations. Each theme informed participants understanding of the campus and aided in their ability to: (a) identify racial systemic impediments; and (b) develop strategies to overcome these impediments. Through these insights, we empower those who work with Black students to use their literacies and Englishes as a premise for fostering leadership.

Authors

• Bryan Hotchkins, Texas Tech University

• Patriann Smith, University of South Florida