The Relationship Between Language Brokering and Citizenship Becoming: Implications for K-12 Education

• In Event: Language Brokering in Diverse Contexts: Implications for Schools

Abstract

Objective
Our objective in this study was to examine the connections between the language brokering experiences of transnational youth who grew up in Mexican immigrant families and their understanding and enactment of citizenship. Language brokering involves “using the knowledge of two or more languages to speak, read, write, listen, and do things for others” (Orellana et al., 2014) and has been related to the development of empathic concern (Crafter & Iqbal, 2021) and transcultural perspective-taking (Guan et al., 2014). However, little research examines how this everyday practice changes over time and space (Orellana, 2017), nor how it is related to youths’ citizenship and educational experiences. In turn, we asked: How do language brokers negotiate diverse meanings of citizenship in their transnational contexts? How do their transliteracy experiences shape their “citizenship becoming” over time, and what might this mean for schools?

Framework
To study the intertwined nature of meaning-making and power in language brokers’ lives, we integrate language brokering research with the transliteracies framework and notions of citizenship in the globalizing world (Smith et al., 2018; Stornaiuolo et al., 2017). With a focus on status, activity, and relationship on the move (as the prefix “trans” implies), a transliteracies framework allows us to explore language brokering as a mobile act between, across, and beyond cultural and semiotic borders, towards new configurations of meaning and identity.

Methods and Data Sources
We drew from a 10-year research program focused on language brokering. From 2000-2010 in three interrelated studies, we used mainly ethnographic research methods to document and analyze the language brokering of youth living in Chicago-area, Mexican immigrant households. While this analysis includes data from participant observation and interviews with children when they were eight to 14 years old, we primarily analyze data from the third study, specifically, narrative interviews with 10 participants at an average age of 20.

Results
Findings demonstrate how language brokering practices offered opportunities for youth to negotiate citizenship in various ways over space and time. We provide examples of youth employing their transliteracies and translocal expertise for civic justice, or “social citizenship rights” (Kwon, 2015, p. 624), as they increasingly helped family and other transnational community members gain access to local goods and services. At the same time, in a period of growing anti-immigrant discourses and policies (similar to today’s climate), they also experienced personal challenges and developed a deep recognition of hard borders facing their racialized communities, especially those without documented legal citizenship (including some of themselves). Yet, none of them mentioned a recognition at school or by educators of their unique language brokering capacities, nor their knowledge of immigration policy/bordering.

Significance
Examining transnational youths’ language brokering (and other transliteracy experiences) can disrupt traditional notions of citizenship, provide inspiration for citizenship conversations in K-12 schooling, and underscore the importance of recognizing both language brokers’ agency and the limiting structures around them. We conclude with an argument for a stronger notion of politicized funds of knowledge in classrooms (Gallo & Link, 2015), which is especially important in our current times.

Authors

• Lisa M. Dorner, University of Missouri

• Sujin Kim, George Mason University