Linguistic Racialization: How Language Represents Race and Produces Internalized Inferiorities

• In Event: 42.064 - Race Theory and Educational Research: The Power of "Representations"

Abstract

In discussions of learning and teaching English, the center-periphery relationship is often implicated. The colonial discourse of English domination constructs other languages, and by extension the speakers of other languages, their cultures and racial identities as ‘subordinate and minority in status’ (Macedo et al., 2006). This project uses a cultural studies race framework to document and analyze aspects of the identity politics that permeates the language learning experiences of a group of low-skill first generation adult immigrant ESL learners. Based on a case study of this group enrolled in the ESL program, it reports on the analysis of interview and focus group data gathered in a one-year period using mixed-methods approach.

While the study confirms that in opting to learn and use English -- often linked to their chances of upward social mobility --learners make complex ideological and social choices (Canagarajah, 1998), it identifies a three-pronged mechanism of linguistic, cultural and racial oppression at play whereby long-standing racial subjectivities are continually performed (Butler, 2004) and reproduced. The research for the study takes account of relations between ‘simple colonial pasts and complex futures (Pennycook, 2004), through which racialized inferior stereotypes were created. However, it mainly focuses on the politics of race representation (Hall, 1996; Foucault, 1971; Leonardo, 2013) and the analytical standpoint that points to a process of psychosocial development known as ‘social mirroring’ (Suarez-Orozco & Suarez-Orozco, 2000). It draws the conclusion that through practice, immigrant language learners perpetuate a form of internalized racism (Fanon, 1952; Tatum, 1997; Allen, 2005) as they continue to believe in the stereotypes imposed on their group.

That said, the significance of the study also lies in its findings based on the fluidity of identity categories constructed over time and through repetition. If the identity is performatively constituted by the very ‘expressions’ that are said to be its results (Butler, 2000), a reversal can take place. The study thus reflects on the potentiality of teachers and the curriculum in disrupting the discourse of inferiority and in improving the educational outcomes for adult immigrant language learners.

Author

• Maliheh M. Vafai, Santa Clara University