The Social, Emotional, and Cultural Affordances of African Immigrant Multilingual and Multiliterate Practices

• In Event: Multiliteracies in Diverse Contexts: New Possibilities for School and Community Collaboration

Abstract

The United States’ burgeoning Black immigration population is mostly fueled by immigrants from African nations (Pew Research Center, 2022). Included in this population are African immigrant youth, whose arrival to the United States often includes challenging transitions into new social and cultural environments and desires for belonging (Ibrahim, 1999; McLean, 2020). So, this paper explores how four African immigrant youth engaged in multilingual and multiliterate practices to suit their social, emotional, and cultural needs.

I draw on language and literacy as a social practice (Scribner & Cole, 1978; Street, 1984) and emotional stickiness (Ahmed, 2014) as theoretical frames to examine how social, cultural, and historical entities shape languages and literacies. Language and literacy as social practice critiques the autonomous perspective of language and literacy that is text and print dominant. Instead, it acknowledges the cognitive processes while privileging the sociocultural contexts, methods, and range of modes of language and literacy learning in which all people engage within and beyond school (New London Group, 1996; Skerrett, 2015). Therefore, this theory provides a lens to examine the social and cultural purposes that influence the youth's multilingual and multiliterate employments. Emotional stickiness, as conceived by Sara Ahmed (2014), is “an effect of the histories of bodies, objects, and signs” (p. 90). This theory recognizes the emotional impressions that surface and stick when these entities repeatedly interact. An emotional stickiness lens allows me to investigate the histories associated with the youth's multilingual and multiliterate employment as well as the emotions that surface when they come into contact.

Drawing from a larger 11-month, critical ethnographic study (Vaught, 2011) that explored six African immigrant youth identities, languages, and literacies in the Southwestern United States, the insights from this paper emerge from my analysis of questionnaires, home observations, interviews, and collected literacy artifacts.. I utilized narrative analysis (Reisman, 2008), narrative portraiture (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997) and constant comparative analysis (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) to interpret data.

One significant finding from the study is that multilingual practices enabled the youth to experience positive emotions, sustain friendships, and build new social communities. Specifically, speaking Nigerian Pidgin with friends in Nigeria on WhatsApp and Xbox live chat rooms generated feelings of freedom, happiness, and nostalgia. Despite the positive emotions associated with speaking Nigerian Pidgin, racial and language ideologies led the boys to purposefully acquire Black Language through multiliteracies, such as through rap music, YouTube, and conversations with school friends. Speaking Black language (Baker-Bell, 2020; Smitherman, 1997) allowed them to form new friendships and socially position themselves as knowledgeable of popular culture. Also, multilingual and multiliterate employments helped the youth, who immigrated to the U.S. in their toddler years, build cultural connections to Nigeria and intergenerational bonds with elder family members. These findings highlight the salient role that the youth’s multilingual and multiliterate employments play in building community within their family, cultural, and social circles. They also have implications for researchers and educators with devotions to building spaces where Black African immigrant youth feel emotionally safe, understood, connected.

Author

• Lakeya Afolalu, University of Washington
  Presenting Author