Opening Space for Self: Nigerian Immigrant Youth Agentive Multiliterate Practices

• In Event: Vice-Presidential Session. African Immigrant Youth: Schooling, Education, and Civic Engagement in the African Diaspora

Abstract

Western media has a long history of depicting stereotypical African narratives. These depictions are further reinforced in school spaces through curricular materials, pedagogical practices, and cultural events that often exoticize African populations. Although Black African immigrant youth often resist engaging in school-sponsored events that mispresent African societies and culture (Awokoya, 2012; Lev-Aladgem, 2008), they still need opportunities to bring their full selves to their learning and social environments.

In this presentation, I use narrative portraiture as a methodology to explore how three Nigerian immigrant youth agentively mediate colonial and linguistic tensions through their respective multiliterate employments (e.g., dance, art, and sports). Drawing on theoretical foundations of language and literacy as social practice, raciolinguistic (Rosa & Flores, 2017), and postcolonialism, I argue that multiliterate practices open curricular spaces for Black African immigrant youth to authentically narrate identities beyond Western gazes. The youth’s multiliterate practices offer important implications for deepened understandings of Black African immigrant youth literacies and identities.

I call for scholars, teachers, and community educators to adopt postcolonial multiliterate approaches to center the humanity of Black African immigrant youth and to support their learning.

Author

• Lakeya Afolalu, University of Washington
  Presenting Author