"How (Not) to Sell a Lie": Beyond (Mis)Classification of (Black Immigrant) Speakers of Englishes

• In Event: Raciolinguistic Perspectives on English Learner Classification and Reclassification

Abstract

Persisting misinterpretations regarding the Englishes (Kachru, 1992) of Black immigrant youth have tended to result in dichotomous classification that positions them as either 'successful English speakers' or 'English learners' (i.e., non-English speakers) for literacy assessment and instruction in US schools (Author, In press; Author et al., 2019; Migration Policy Institute, 2019; Nero, 2006; Pratt-Johnson & Richards, 1995; West-White, 2003; Zong & Batalova, 2016). Given this conundrum, Black immigrant speakers of Englishes are forced to either classify as competent English speakers, or as learners of a language (i.e., largely English) that many of them are confident they already know (Nero, 2006). They do this often because they are not given an opportunity to classify as bidialectal speakers of English in language instruction and assessment contexts (Author et al., 2019).

Regardless of the route chosen, Black immigrant speakers of Englishes are inadequately served by a system of language instruction and assessment that asks them to engage in such dichotomous classification. I argue that this is the case because the raciolinguistic ideologies (Rosa & Flores, 2017) underlying Black speakers’ desire to identify as 'standard' speakers of English suggest that they will benefit from doing so when in fact, they do not. They are supposedly, and often, insufficiently versed enough in the standardized English (i.e., SAE) accepted by US academic circles, and it is a myth that trying to appropriate Eurocentric language norms will somehow allow Black students to become accepted by academic systems in the US (see Rosa & Flores, 2017). I further argue that this situation holds strong because raciolinguistic ideologies underlying Black immigrant speakers’ classification as English learners in the US, which previously positioned these speakers as illegitimate users of non-standardized Englishes in their home countries, appear to often obliterate already established variations of English proficiency that such speakers bring to the US context (Author, 2020). In effect, this situation makes visible the former unacknowledged presence of the 'White gaze' that invariably undergirds language norms of Black immigrant speakers in their majority Black home countries (Author, In press; Rosa & Flores, 2017). Black immigrant speakers (eventually) realize that whether they classify as ‘successful English speakers' or 'English learners' in the US, they 'do not win’.

This conceptual paper draws on data excerpts from a qualitative study focused on the cross-cultural and cross-linguistic experiences of Black immigrant youth. Analyses from this study in which I deployed a (decolonizing) interpretive research design (see Darder, 2015; Dei, 2000) are used to demonstrate how scenarios based on the afore-mentioned arguments, persist in the lives and experiences of Black immigrant speakers of Englishes. Specifically, I draw from individual and focus-group interviews of high school teachers of Black immigrants as well as Black male immigrant and Black female immigrant youth, all of whom are speakers of Englishes. I illustrate how dichotomous classification opportunities for Black immigrant speakers are in fact steeped in raciolinguistic ideologies that subjugate the Englishes of speakers, regardless of how they classify and whether they are standardized or not. In doing so, I invite the field to move beyond the (mis)classification of 'English learners' that (re)instantiates raciolinguistic ideologies towards supportive mechanisms that serve English-speaking youth.

Author

• Patriann Smith, University of South Florida