“They Spanish, they ain’t Black:” Language policing and Black authenticity in an after school program

• In Event: Promising Scholarship in Education Research: Dissertation Fellows and Their Research

Abstract

“They Spanish, they ain’t Black:” Language policing and Black authenticity in an after school program

Vally Lytra (2016) asks, “how is ethnic identity imagined and performed but also imposed in discourse and social activity? What is the role of the nation state and its institutions, such as schools and the media, in the social reproduction of ethnic categorization? Whose linguistic and identity practices are considered authentic and whose are not, and who decides'' (p.131)? I extend Lytra's question by asking in what ways projects of panethnicity become imagined within transnational racial frames? Herein, the current study presents a critical race and anthro-political linguistic ethnography of three significant moments of linguistic policing in the planning, execution, and aftermath of a Black History Month show at a high school with a highly heterogeneous population of Black subjectivities. Two main research questions guide the chapter. First, I ask how languages (Dominican Spanish and Black English) and cultures are shared and contested in the service of ethno-raciolinguistic development for Afro-Caribbeans in U.S. contexts. Further, I contend with the embodied experiences of Blackness that permit linguistic heterogeneity within Black racializations for certain bilingual speakers over others (e.g Haitian Creole vs Spanish). Secondly, I ask how schools allow for the construction and negotiation of ethno-racial identity through the implementation and direction of a school sponsored activity. In exploring this activity, as part of the school culture, I am able to interrogate pedagogical and policy impacts on the construction of identity boundaries for heterogeneous Black subjects.

Author

• Aris M. Clemons, The University of Texas at Austin