I Speak, I Write, I Resist: A Long-term English Learner’s Counterstory of Defiance

• In Event: Speaking Truth to Cacophony: Raciolinguistic Frameworks as Resistance to a Renewed Onslaught of Racist Policy

Abstract

PURPOSE

As of 2023, over 330,000 students in California have been classified as English Learners (ELs) for seven or more years (Price et al., 2024). These students, labeled Long-Term English Learners (LTELs), often remain in EL status despite English fluency, largely because standardized assessment policies misrepresent their linguistic abilities. This presentation offers a collaborative counterstory by a 17-year-old student labeled as an LTEL and an education scholar, centering the lived experience of navigating this contradictory labeling system. It invites reimagining assessment and labeling policies toward educational equity.

THEORETICAL FRAMING

Grounded in critical race theory (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002), raciolinguistic ideologies (Flores & Rosa, 2015), and desire-based research (Tuck, 2009), this presentation challenges deficit-based framings of (LT)ELs. We center youth voice, recognize students as experts of their experiences, and resist labels that treat multilingualism as a deficit.

METHODS AND DATA SOURCES

This presentation is part of a large study involving Iranian American families raising bilingual children attending K–12 schools and community-based Persian programs. We draw from Author 2’s ethnographic observations of a Southern California Persian program and a semi-structured interview with Author 1, a 17-year-old student labeled as an LTEL, who attended the program at the time. The interview, conducted in English with Persian translanguaging, took place nearly a year after ethnographic fieldwork began and was transcribed for thematic analysis (Saldaña, 2015). The analysis focused on family language practices, linguistic identity, and experiences in school and heritage language settings. Author 2 shared findings with Author 1 for member-checking and invited her to co-author a paper. Author 1 contributed prose and poetry, enriching the counterstory. Together, the authors integrated these sources to compose Author 1’s counterstory.

RESULTS

Author 1 was designated EL in kindergarten after her parents indicated Persian as a home language. Although she opted out of ESL services and now uses English as her dominant language, she has retained the EL label. She aspires to become an English literature professor. She finds irony in being evaluated by the English Language Proficiency Assessments for California (ELPAC), a test her teacher claimed, “even native English speakers would fail.” Reflecting, she shared: “I find that very ironic because I want to be a literature professor, major in English… but I can’t wrap my head around it…. I just couldn’t sit down and just read eight paragraphs for like four hours” (Interview, June 27, 24). In her prose, Author 1 compares the ELPAC to the racially biased Alpha and Beta intelligence tests of World War I, which she took during AP Psychology coursework. These assessments reflect “ideological perceptions rather than measurements of empirical linguistic practices” (Rosa, 2016, p. 172), reducing multilingual students’ abilities to English and applying deficit labels.

SIGNIFICANCE

This presentation aligns with AERA’s 2026 theme by imagining just futures rooted in student voices. While the Global California 2030 initiative promotes multilingualism, current assessments still gatekeep recognition from students who are already multilingual. This counterstory moves beyond damage-centered framings and foregrounds insight, complexity, and resistance in youth navigating policy systems that marginalize them.

Authors

• Hosna Jabalameli, Unaffiliated

• Yalda M. Kaveh, Arizona State University