Language and Power

I went to high school in Cranston where the population was pretty diverse. I never felt like I was the majority as someone who is white and there were plenty of people that were Hispanic, African American, and Asian descent. So this being said, I heard a lot of different languages every single day. It never bothered me, and I never really thought about it until reading Christensen’s chapter on Language and Power. Obviously, I knew already that English is seen as the primary language in America and everyone is expected to be proficient in English. I didn’t occur to me that people who spoke different languages were oppressed in schools because that just wasn’t my experience. I even had some teachers learning words in languages like Filipino, just to talk to the students in their language. 

What also didn’t make sense to me is that the chapter noted on the fact that several classrooms in America have banned Spanish but in most schools it’s also a requirement to take a foreign language, and most 4-year colleges also require foreign language courses. So why is it that the only people who are oppressed are the people who already speak a language that isn't English and are still trying to learn English?

Going back to my own experience, I should also mention that this was on the Eastern side of Cranston. My best friend Salma was born in the United States but grew up in Mexico until middle school. She moved to Rhode Island and went to the same middle school I did but transferred to Cranston West for high school. The western side is known for being a prominently white, preppy, rich community. So I thought she could give me some insight on this.

Salma told me that when she went to Park View and the year she spent at East were wonderful in terms of her heritage being celebrated. Park View had Heritage Club and would put on a function for the whole school to bring their families and learn about their culture and try some of their cuisine. Her Spanish teacher at East had Salma help her sometimes with things she wasn’t clear on since Spanish wasn’t her first language. Her Spanish was never seen as an obstacle, even though she didn’t perfect her English until sophomore year of high school. She told me that when she transferred to West things were very different for her. The kids in Spanish class looked at her weird for not struggling, and looked at and treated differently for struggling with English. When she kindly told the teacher that she translated something wrong, she was chastised for speaking out of turn and kicked out of class. This really shocked me because I obviously knew West’s reputation but I had never realized they discriminated against her so much for being Spanish. Salma looks white and you’d really never guess it. But when she met her advisor at West for the first time, the first question she had for her was, “I see you moved here from Mexico a few years ago. Are you even legal?” Salma told me this wasn’t the last time she was asked that question either. In her first trimester at JWU, her writing professor asked her after a personal essay assignment, “ So, are you an illegal alien or…?” The ignorance that these people in Salma’s life displayed was horrifying to me but she just played it off so casually and said that she was used to it by now. But she also said that it’s gotten to the point where she even feels uncomfortable speaking Spanish in public. She saves it for home when talking to her mother and brother and extended family members. She also told me that her aunts and uncles are struggling teaching Spanish to their children because the elementary schools they attend don’t promote it and told them that English is more important to know.

Tying this all back into Christensen and what these means for me as a future educator, I know now that I was lucky to attend schools that practiced what they preached about diversity and inclusivity in terms of students speaking their native languages inside the classroom. But I also learned that not everyone has that experience and oppression of language and culture is a real thing inside classrooms who claim that their goal is to promote and include. One quote that really stuck out to me from the reading this week was,

“Over the years, students have drawn mouths sewn shut, tongues nailed to the ground, languages squeezed out or buried under stacks of English grammar books, a Spanish voice box removed, graveyards for indigenous languages, a mouth rubbed out by an eraser with the word English written across the top, and language trees with the withered leaves of Korean, Spanish, Russian, African languages dropping off while the red, ripe English fruit flourished.” (p. 208)

Honestly, this breaks my heart. People who speak another language and are trying to learn English are no different than people who speak English already and are trying to learn something else. Why is it that when a white person says they’re trying to learn Mandarin everyone tells them “good for you” but when someone who’s first language is Mandarin and they’re still trying to learn English in America, the response is, “This is America, either learn to speak the language or go back to where you came from.”

What this means to me is that as a future educator, I think it’s important for students to learn why they may be oppressed for their language, but also to teach them that what they’ve experienced is wrong and show them that they are allowed to embrace and celebrate it, no matter who tells them their wrong. Because at the end of the day, they’re trying a hell of a lot harder than anyone who tells them they’re wrong for being different.