Making Sense of the Intersections of Languaging and Racialization With Bilingual Latinx Middle Schoolers

• In Event: Translating Theory to Practice: Pedagogies of Raciolinguistics in the Classroom

Abstract

In the Golden Gulag (2007), Ruth Wilson Gilmore defines racism as, “the state-sanctioned or extralegal production and exploitation of group-differentiated vulnerability to premature death” (p. 28). Languaging is a critical, yet often overlooked, process in group differentiation for the purpose of determining exclusion and belonging. In this paper, I examine the ways in which race and language intersect to include or exclude, specifically in the lives of Latinx adolescent youth. The primary question guiding this paper is, How do bilingual Latinx middle schoolers articulate their awareness of the links between languaging and racialization in the context of an after-school program that is consciously oriented towards such critical investigations? This work foregrounds the voices of young adolescents, a perspective that is lacking in educational research, particularly in regards to youth’s articulated understandings of the intersections of languaging and racialization.
Putting Gilmore’s definition of racism into conversation with Urciuoli’s (1996) distinction between ethnicization and racialization clarifies the ways in which Latinx are racialized in the US, despite being broadly defined by ethnic characteristics such as language and country of origin. Flores and Rosa (2015) further connect language and race using a raciolinguistic perspective, in which speakers produce speech based on “idealized linguistic practices of whiteness” (p. 151), and listeners interpret speech using not only linguistic features, but also racialized understandings of the speaker.

The research presented here draws from a case study that engaged Latinx bilingual middle school youth in an 8-week after-school program aimed at building youths’ critical awareness of the relationships between language and race, and better understanding youth perspectives and experiences of racialization. Eleven students participated in 90-minute after-school sessions twice a week. Pedagogical methods included keeping language journals, collaborative analysis of social media, Collaborative Descriptive Inquiry (CDI), and improv theater. Entry and exit interviews were conducted as well. I analyzed data using a combination of thematic analysis, narrative analysis, and Critical Discourse Analysis.

The findings of this study highlight Latinx adolescents’ understandings of the ways that raciolinguistic ideologies inform their own and others’ perceptions of race, ethnicity, and language, and work to marginalize and dehumanize some while benefiting those who fit within the paradigm of the white standard-English-speaking American. I will first focus on youth’s varied reactions to a prompt asking that they reflect on a negative experience related to language, race, ethnicity, immigration, or wealth. Events that unfolded in this session will lead into the next set of data, which focuses on youth’s raciolinguistic analysis of two memes using the process of Collaborative Descriptive Inquiry (CDI).

The findings shed light on the ways that youth connect visual and linguistic markers to processes of racialization, and youth’s abilities to engage in complex meta-analysis of social processes of inclusion and exclusion. The paper also offers methods that could potentially engage youth in these kinds of conversations, such as individual writing exercises followed by collective improv theater, and CDI, both of which offer promise in creating communities of resistance among youth.

Author

• Sarah Hesson, Rhode Island College