"I Wasn't American 'Enough'": Education Policy as Cultural Imperialism

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session 17
  In Roundtable Session: “American Dream Is a Lie”: New Scholarship on the Cultural (Re)production of “Success” and “Failure”

Abstract

Objective: It is the norm around the globe to navigate society in two or more languages, but in the US, bilingualism generally exists in tension with restrictive language policy linked to a monolingual citizenship identity (Bale, 2011). Studies find that restrictive language policy does not promote student achievement, and educators have sought solutions in models of bilingual speech communities and communities of practice (Newcomer & Puzio, 2016). This four-year study explores the perspectives of transnational and second-generation university students who participated in a service-learning model for community English instruction that was conceptualized as a multilingual community of practice. In their reflective journals, university students looked back on their K-12 school years. Although studies have investigated the effect of restrictive language policy for students in K-12, few studies have unearthed the perspectives of young adults whose educations were shaped by it. Mira, a university student who speaks Punjabi at home, remembered her experiences in school. “Growing up I always felt like an outsider — that I wasn’t American ‘enough’.” In a subsequent interview, she added, “I was so scared to talk about my culture, I wanted so hard to be American….I wanted to be ‘normal’ whatever ‘normal’ is.”

Conceptual Framework: The study employs “five faces of oppression” (Young, 1990/2011) as a conceptual framework to identify cultural imperialism, actions located in everyday structures, habits, and norms that diminish or immobilize a social group. Cultural imperialism is the experience of being marked out as “Other” by a dominant group while at the same time, the perspective of one’s social group is rendered invisible (2011, p. 59). Cultural imperialism affords insights into ideological struggles centered on language and cultural membership in the context of neoliberal education that makes "difference" a problem.

Methodology: A narrative approach (De Fina & Georgakopoulou, 2012) was employed to analyze university students’ reflective journals and recorded interviews over four years of the service-learning project in a linguistically diverse community. The study located and pursued the theme of an “American” cultural and citizenship identity linked to English, and struggles with discourses of “dependency,” and "difference" as markers of disenfranchisement, linked to family languages and cultures.

Conclusions and Significance: The study finds that intergenerational exchanges in this intentionally multilingual service-learning project became rich resources for university students to (re)construct their relationships with families and communities, and (re)make a sense of self, by unlearning oppressive norms. By the end of the semester, Mira recognized an identity available to her. “Through [the program] I have seen that I’m not alone.... I learned that there’s nothing wrong with being different. This is something that I did not expect to get out of the program when I first joined. I am extremely thankful and it has made me embrace and accept my culture and myself more than ever.” The study informs educators about the urgency and benefits of designing bilingual curricula, and to consider innovative ways to partner with diverse communities to create multilingual communities of practice in public education.

Author

• Jessie Curtis, Rutgers University