Author: Salman Hussain

Cristian Aquino-Sterling’s “Notes Towards a Clarifying Response to Gregory Gagnon”.

Notes Towards a Clarifying Response to Gagnon

Cristian R. Aquino-Sterling

Advanced Research Collaborative (ARC) Fellow

Spring – Summer, 2016

“The greatest task of education as we enter the 21st century is to address pedagogically the radical reconfiguration of social life brought on by the proliferation of multiplicity and difference.”

—Dimitriades & McCarthy (2001).

“It is not that people use language varieties because of who they are, but rather that we perform who we are by (among other things) using varieties of language.”

—Pennycook (2003).

Conducting research on how bilingual teacher education programs in California and New York City prepare future K-12 bilingual teachers for the work of content-area instruction in Spanish is not without its conceptual and methodological challenges. At a conceptual level, this work presupposes (1) that, despite it being a “discursively constructed artifact” (del Valle, 2015), Spanish and its varieties are distinctive and linguistically recognized forms of communication; (2) that “proficiency” in any language (variety) can be assessed, evaluated, and developed (Douglass, 2000; Shohamy, 1996); and (3) that in employing a “repertoire of complex linguistic resources” (Valdés, 2015) to carry out multiple pedagogical language tasks, K-12 bilingual teachers also require to draw on features of what dominant society has constructed as ‘standard,’ ‘academic’ and ‘disciplinary’ forms of Spanish (Regueiro Rodríguez & Sáez Rivera, 2015).[i]

However, the cultivation of socially dominant “communicative repertoires” (Rymes, 2010) does not imply the inherent deficiency of language features and practices that traditionally have not been recognized or legitimized as ‘standard,’ ‘academic,’ and/or ‘disciplinary.’ In the same way, the cultivation of socially dominant linguistic repertoires and practices does not exclude bilingual teacher educators (and, therefore, K-12 bilingual teachers) from fostering and equally valuing bilingual students’ full linguistic repertoires, including their “fluid bilingual languaging” practices (García, 2014). In order to affirm the often marginalized cultural and linguistic identities of their students, K-12 bilingual teacher educators (and, therefore, K-12 bilingual teachers) must design teaching and learning contexts in which the wide range of multilingual resources characterizing the classroom community functions as an authentic and legitimate vehicle for the co-construction of ‘academic’ forms of knowledge beyond the use and the privileging of the “monoglot ‘standard’” (Silverstein, 1996).[ii]

However, it is important to remember that certain language varieties (e.g., African-American Vernacular English; Chicano Spanish) and modalities (code-switching; translanguaging) have not achieved communicative legitimacy within so-called ‘elite’ and/or ‘mainstream’ contexts of language use (e.g., ‘scholarly’/’academic’ knowledge production), due in large part to the workings of the capitalist market system. Within our capitalist system of production, the social stratification of language(s)—the ascription of higher social, economic, and ‘academic’ value to selected languages, language features, and practices—is likely to persist as the modus operandi unless we adhere to a new economic model in which stratification does not function as a prerequisite for the survival of the system—and language, therefore, is no longer treated as a ‘commodity.’

In a society where individuals are prone to compete for resources, the macro-level forces of social stratification that regulate linguistic exchanges (Bourdieu, 1999) exert unequivocal influences on micro-level contexts (e.g., bilingual teacher education classrooms; K-12 bilingual classrooms). As such, micro-level adaptations intended to counter the stratifying effects of market forces are undeniably subject to the greater influence of macro-economic forces.[iii] Moreover, to the degree that ownership of the means of production and economic authority remain in the hands of selected ‘elite’ groups, micro-level proposals for disrupting the effects of market forces have the potential to remain relevant and effective only at the micro-levels of social life (e.g., multilingual school contexts). Given these dynamics, and in order to engage in the ‘academic’/’professional’ life of so-called ‘mainstream’ society, it is imperative (although not always sufficient) for minoritized (emergent) bilingual student populations to learn to employ the linguistic resources that dominant society has established as ‘legitimate’—sought after and guarded linguistic commodities, dangerous for all to acquire.[iv]

Because I do not see my research on how bilingual teacher education programs prepare future teachers for the work of teaching content-area knowledge in Spanish as advocating the dismantling of our current capitalist economic model, and inasmuch as I do advocate for the legitimacy of all linguistic repertoires, I believe future K-12 bilingual teachers (and their future K-12 bilingual students) have the right to be socialized into the language/discourse practices of ‘dominant’ society—unless, of course, these social actors make a conscious choice to resist being initiated into these practices. Although I realize that notions of ‘standard’ ‘academic’ and ‘professional’ language are indeed social constructions (Berger & Luckmann, 1966), I also know that not being able to employ forms of language expected within particular ‘academic’ or ‘professional’ contexts may entail concrete material consequences.

As indicated in previous research (Aquino-Sterling, 2016):

Ideally, within a U.S. Latino context, bilingual teacher education classrooms should aspire to become communities of non-compartmentalized bilingual language practices where all course participants are able to exercise the right to translanguage (García, 2014) or “ [to] deploy [… ] [their] full linguistic repertoire without regard for watchful adherence to the socially and politically defined boundaries [of any] language [or language variety],”  and without having to feel insecure and/or ashamed of the language performances they feel most comfortable enacting (Otheguy, García, & Reid, 2015, p. 283). However, given the power structures in our society, I believe it is crucial for all students in K– 12 and beyond, including future bilingual teachers, to diversify their language competence ‘ toolbox’— their “ repertoire of complex linguistic resources”  (Valdés, 2015, p. 268)— and acquire the language [forms] of power (Delpit, 1993). This will ensure they are not at a disadvantage when required to produce formal, ‘academic,’ and ‘professional’ forms of discourse across social contexts” (p. 54).

As critical-educational scholars, it is of outmost importance to deconstruct naturalized notions of ‘standard,’ ‘academic,’ ‘disciplinary,’ and ‘professional’ forms of language. However, we must be mindful of the potential unintended consequences of espousing language pedagogies that, in their rightful and much-needed intent to affirm and legitimize the varied cultural and linguistic identities of minoritized (bilingual) learners, could also serve to deprive them of opportunities to acquire forms of linguistic capital that are still operative, valued, and guarded within the logics of an unyielding and evermore expanding capitalist system of production and social stratification. Unless, of course, our intent is also to work earnestly to disrupt the macro-level system that re-produces such inequities while ensuring that these students do not unintentionally become “the miner’s canary” (Guinier & Torres, 2002).

On ‘Proficiency’ and ‘Pedagogical Spanish’

In conducting a review of the literature on Spanish in bilingual teacher education, I found that scholars in the field have generally characterized the K-12 bilingual teacher population as exhibiting “low levels” of Spanish proficiency. Although the literature reviewed at times unjustifiably attributes this “low level” of proficiency to the often marginalized language practices characteristic of second-language speakers, heritage language speakers, simultaneous bilinguals, and/or individuals who employ an ethnically-identified language variety (e.g. Chicano Spanish), in my study I define proficiency in contextual rather than absolute terms. Absolute proficiency (AP) pertains to the implicit and erroneous idea that a speaker is proficient in a language to the degree that she is able to perform language functions in the “standard” language variety; in other words, to the degree the speaker’s performance approximates the performance of an illusive “native” and “educated” speaker (as defined by ACTFL; the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages; the Real Academia de la Lengua Española). Contextual proficiency (CP), on the other hand, rejects the idea of proficiency as a function of standard language practices. Rather, contextual proficiency provides us with an inclusive and democratic understanding of the communicative act and posits that human beings can exhibit language proficiency in any language (Spanish, English), language variety (e.g., Chicano Spanish; African American Vernacular English), and/or modality (codeswitching; translanguaging).  As I conceive of it, contextual proficiency refers to a speaker’s capacity to meet any functional language task (e.g. describe, explain, question, hypothesize, formulate argument/opinion, etc.) employing any language variety or modality appropriate or relevant to the context of the communicative act.

Emerging from the idea of contextual proficiency (CP), teaching-specific or pedagogical Spanish serves as a viable approach for assessing and developing the academic-pedagogical aspect of pedagogical Spanish as discourse, namely: “[…] the language and literacy competencies bilingual teachers require for the effective work of teaching in Spanish across the curriculum in K– 12 bilingual schools […]” (Aquino-Sterling, 2016, p. 51). As originally conceived, and as Gagnon rightly indicates in his commentary, this model did not include or made explicit the goal of also integrating the often marginalized and hybrid language practices of simultaneous bilinguals. (As indicated above, in bilingual school classrooms students have the right and should be given the opportunity to perform language functions in a variety of language and modalities, drawing on their full linguistic repertoire.) However, this omission did not derive from upholding a deficit view of particular forms of language, as we find articulated in concepts such as the “word gap” (Fuller et al., 2015); “semilingualism” (Cummins, 2000); the “underdeveloped code” (Valdés & Geoffrion-Vinci, 1998), or the “restricted code” (Bernstein, 1971). The idea of “low” levels of Spanish proficiency in so-called ‘standard,’ ‘academic,’ and/or ‘professional’ Spanish varieties should not be understood, necessarily, as being complicit in perpetuating deficit views of non-dominant language varieties, practices, and/or modalities when proficiency is understood in contextual rather than absolute ways. Although it proved difficult to fully articulate this perspective during my ARC lecture, I find it important to include it here as a clarifying response to Gagnon´s commentary and in order to avoid further misunderstandings.

For an explicit version of a more inclusive “pedagogical Spanish” model, please refer to an article I have co-authored (Aquino-Sterling & Rodríguez-Valls, 2016, Multicultural Perspectives) entitled, “Developing Teaching-Specific Spanish Competencies in Bilingual Teacher Education: Towards a Culturally, Linguistically, and Professionally Relevant Approach.”

 

[i] Within bilingual classroom contexts, teachers are called to meet the language/discourse demands of pedagogical communicative tasks characteristic of multidisciplinary and academic classroom/school life (e.g., modeling for a student how to conceptualize and orally express a structured scientific argument in multiple languages, language varieties, and/or modalities, including in ways valued by the greater academic/scientific community).

[ii] Within poststructural/postmodern approaches to [linguistic] identity construction and performance (Hall, 1992; Norton, 2000; Pennycook, 2003; Sarup, 1993; 1996) the assertion “I am my language” is no longer a sufficient explanation of linguistic identity construction. Rather, the assertion “I am my languages” becomes a more relevant explanation for contemporary forms of adscriptions to non-essential and multiple social and linguistic identities.

[iii]At the micro-level of the classroom, valuing the linguistic repertoires represented is a necessary and worthy adjustment. However, classrooms and their students do not live in isolation from greater social and economic structures. Making the familiar strange by deconstructing the social categories that ascribe higher values to dominant forms of communication is important inasmuch as we also recognize the social value of these forms and the right of minoritized students to access these, given the reproductive nature of economic and social structures. The bilingual classroom should serve as a microcosm that both affirms and expands the social and linguistic experiences of its participants.

[iv] Lisa Delpit has been a key figure in helping us transition from deficit perspectives of language use to acknowledging the non-inherent yet higher socioeconomic value dominant society has allocated to certain forms of language. Delpit also emphasizes a teacher’s ethical responsibility to facilitate a classroom context where minoritized students acquire/learn “codes of power” (2006) or “discourses of power” (1993).

 

 

Commentary on Cristian Aquino-Sterling’s “Developing Spanish Competencies in Bilingual Teacher Education: Current Approaches and Future Directions” by ARC Student Fellow Gregory Gagnon.

In his talk, “Developing and Assessing Spanish Competencies in Bilingual Teacher Education: Current Approaches & Future Directions,” Cristian Aquino-Sterling presents preliminary results of a study showing marked heterogeneity in approaches to teacher selection, training, assessment, and certification among dual-language teacher preparation programs in California and New York. Citing literature that demonstrates teachers in bilingual education programs have historically shown low levels of language competence, he argues that in order to improve bilingual education in the US, a model must be established describing the core competencies required of bilingual teachers so that effective approaches to training teachers in these competencies may be developed.

Aquino-Sterling proposes such a model, which he calls Pedagogical Spanish (Aquino-Sterling, 2016). In its present version, Pedagogical Spanish is composed of four areas: (1) procedural tasks and functions of teaching and learning in the classroom context, (2) procedural tasks and functions of communication with parents, colleagues, and administrators, (3) disciplinary literacies (i.e., the specialized language and discourse of particular content areas) and (4) metalinguistic knowledge. The model highlights areas of competency that may not be present in an individual who otherwise may have developed a superior level of conversational Spanish—areas which are not assessed by standardized language tests. For example, an individual may not have the vocabulary or discursive knowledge to teach a course in ethics or biology, or may have insufficient metalinguistic knowledge to work with students flexibly across languages to enhance their understanding of a particular concept. By describing the multiple domains in which bilingual teachers must function, the Pedagogical Spanish model thus begins to suggest potential areas for future development in dual-language teacher preparation programs.

Aquino-Sterling identifies a significant flaw in the present model, however, stemming from its strongly normative structure, and its tendency to frame language development in terms of deficit and deficiency—what teachers do not have, and what they must be given to become good. He argues that with further development this flaw can be overcome, and Pedagogical Spanish can come to serve as “a contrapeso to the persistent cultural logics of linguistic normativity.” In order to be relevant to real-life needs of teachers and students, he says, Pedagogical Spanish must develop into a “linguistically, culturally, and professionally relevant—non-deficit—additive approach that affirms and validates the hybrid language identities and practices” of bilingual teachers and students in the US.

This future version of the Pedagogical Spanish model will combine the present model’s ability to inform policies and curricula in teacher training with a sensibility shaped by the many voices that echo throughout the talk—Bourdieu and Fanon, Anzaldúa and Chomsky, Del Valle and García, to name a few. Educational policies that insist upon the use of just one language—English—while rejecting all else should not be supplanted by policies that insist upon just two. Instead, we must develop bilingual education models that accept and celebrate the diversity of linguistic repertoires teachers and students bring to school, that engage these repertoires in order to expand what is possible for individual students, and that welcome the participation of all students in the production and circulation of knowledge. With his research, Aquino-Sterling has taken a notable step toward this eventual goal.

References

Aquino-Sterling, C. R. (2016). Responding to the call: Developing and assessing pedagogical Spanish competencies in bilingual teacher education. Bilingual Research Journal, 39(1): 50-68.

 

 

Mary Gibson, “Is Punishment Gendered? The Case of Modern Italy”. Commentary by ARC Student Fellow, Emily Brooks

“Is Punishment Gendered? The Case of Modern Italy,” Dr. Mary Gibson, Department of History, John Jay College and the Graduate Center, CUNY

Much of the field of prison history has been dominated by a chronological trajectory proposed by Michel Foucault in his seminal work, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Foucault argued that between 1760 and 1840 new punishment regimes developed across the Western world.  These new systems moved away from public violence as the central form of punishment, focusing instead on depriving prisoners of liberty, and targeting the spirit rather than the body as the site of transformation.  Foucault noted that in many nations this shift in punishment was tied to a move into modernity. Political figures and public commentators touted their prisons as architectural examples of the power and order of the state. Foucault and scholars who accept his chronological framework have argued that the development of modern prisons in the Western world was influenced by Enlightenment thinking and correlated with the rise of industrial capitalism and liberal government.  They have also focused almost exclusively on men’s prisons. Dr. Mary Gibson, Professor of History at John Jay College and the Graduate Center, CUNY, complicates this narrative by examining the emergence of modern prisons in Italy and comparing the development of both men’s and women’s prisons. Gibson considers, in a field dominated by the study of male prisoners, what examining women’s prisons can tell historians about the development of modern punishment systems. And more broadly, are different types of punishment gendered?

Gibson uses Rome as a case study since it was both the capital of the Papal States, and subsequently united Italy, as well as a site where many penal institutions were situated.  In examining changes in punishment practices in Rome, she finds that women were the first beneficiaries of a switch from corporal punishment to imprisonment. This switch, which can be first seen at San Michele prison in 1735, predated the unification of Italy by over one hundred years. Women in San Michele prison lived in separate cells, in which they were overseen by a single guard who could monitor all inmates, and worked in a wool factory for half the wages paid to female workers outside of prison walls. Thus, many of the hallmarks of the modern penitentiary; isolation, supervision, and manufacturing work, all appeared in Italy earlier than would be expected according to Foucault’s chronology, but can only be seen when examining women’s prisons as well as men’s.  Gibson argues that the San Michele women’s prison was part of a web of religious authorities and philanthropic efforts used to control people who existed outside of family units. Women, who were considered both weak and dangerous, were the objects of much of this charity.

Gibson notes that over the course of the 19th century the conditions of incarcerated women deteriorated. In San Michele, women were paired together in cells, and in some newer institutions, like the Diocleziane Baths, which housed men and women in separate areas, prisoners lived in dormitories.  This crowding together of prisoners was a move away from the isolation seen as central to modern prison architecture and a regression toward pre-modern organization of space. The work experience also changed as women were now trained, not for manufacturing work, but rather for handwork and other gendered labor that was intended to prepare them to serve within a family.  Although women in San Michele had been paid less than non-incarcerated female workers, they had learned a skill, which could then serve them on the labor market outside of prison walls. The transition in the treatment of imprisoned women was overseen by an order of nuns who ran San Michele starting in 1854.  Even after the emergence of the new Italian secular state, the religious control over women’s prisons was not challenged. Gibson notes that the conditions of women’s prisons did not fundamentally change until right before WWI when a series of articles appeared in print that exposed the treatment of women’s prisoners and the rule of nuns over incarcerated women.

The story of the development of men’s prisons in Rome, Gibson finds, was quite different. In contrast to the creation of institutions like San Michele, modern prisons were not established for men until a century later. Male prisoners served sentences of hard labor, chained to their fellow prisoners, until the late 19th century.  After Italian unification municipal authorities replaced the male section of Diocleziane Baths, with a hard labor camp called Tre Fontane. Supporters of Tre Fontane celebrated outdoor work as well suited to the rural men who comprised the majority of prisoners in the camp, and claimed that this work turned prisoners from brutes into men. This penal camp was closed in 1895 after it was criticized in Parliament, partly due to the extremely high rates of malaria contracted among the prisoners. It was replaced with a cellular prison called Regina Coeli, which was hailed as one of the new institutions that marked the modernization of the city.  Coeli was built by prisoners themselves, suggesting comparisons with the way that convict labor was used in the project of modernizing the American South in the late 19th century.  Eventually campaigns launched by construction workers against prison labor, again a trend with similarities in the American context, succeeded and prison workers moved out of the construction industry and into the business of printing.  Printers were less organized and the printing press in Regnia Coeli became one of the longest running prison industries. As the debate over Tre Fontane and the building of Regina Coeli suggest, by the late 19th century men’s prisons were already sites of reform. The development of men’s prisons, therefore, Gibson argues, followed a different path from that of women’s prisons,

Gibson’s work shows the utility of considering gender in connection with punishment. Through detailed research that included prison statistics such as the numbers of letters prisoners received, and information about work hours and penalties for disobedience, as well as the architectural plans of prisons, Gibson tracks changes in the development and functioning of prisons. By comparing the different trajectories of male and female punishment in Italy, Gibson challenges the revisionist model of prison historiography, which has generally accepted a conception of prison as a masculine space. Her work suggests that punishment can be gendered, and that considering how and why can reveal much about the development and functioning of punishment regimes.

~ Emily Brooks.

Juliet Hooker, “Black Lives Matter and The Paradoxes Of U.S. Black Politics: From Democratic Sacrifice To Democratic Repair”. Commentary by ARC Student Fellow, Jennifer Chmielewski.

What are the costs of enacting “appropriate” democratic politics in the face of systematic racial violence? When white citizens and state institutions betray a pervasive lack of concern for black suffering, is it fair to ask black citizens to make further sacrifices so that white citizens can be comfortable? In her powerful talk on the complex responses to the current Black Lives Matter movement, Juliet Hooker explores the forms of politics that Black citizens can and should pursue.

Hooker explores these questions through meditations on the problem of democratic loss. She begins with Danielle Allen, who argues democratic politics is characterized by loss and that we must manage this loss as citizens. There are always situations in which one must be a loser in democracy so democracies have to conceive of how this plays out. Losses are theoretically justified because they happen “arbitrarily” but in actuality, some groups, like African Americans, disproportionately bear this burden of loss. As a result, Allen turns her analysis to holding up citizens who sacrifice as key to democratic stability. She discusses African Americans who responded to racial terror in the 1960’s through non-violence as exemplary citizens making these necessary sacrifices on behalf of the rest of the population. As you might imagine, Hooker argues that this notion of Black sacrifice is problematic and an unfair burden on Black citizens to make others comfortable at the expense of their own wellbeing and freedom. Furthermore, she argues that the underlying historical and theoretical assumptions on which this notion of black politics as democratic sacrifice is based, does not actually hold up.

Hooker notes that the most popular critique of the current Black Lives Matter protests is that protesters have not always engaged in strict standards of non-violence (as compared to memories of the 1960’s protest movements) as they speak out against police brutality, murder and the racism of the criminal justice system. Yet she discusses how this critique is based on three key problematic assumptions. The first is the reduction of a long history of black activism and black political thought to a very sanitized version of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. In this romantic narrative of the civil rights movement, the U.S. is seen as a forward-moving democracy where political relations are always moving towards racial equality. This narrative serves to shift attention away from Black loss and long struggles of racial justice toward the idea that black politics should be about peaceful repair within the same democratic system. In fact, the reason Martin Luther King and non-violence movements made an impact is because they were set up in contrast to Malcolm X and movements like the Black Panthers. Both types of movements were necessary to move towards racial equality but we only remember and honor a romanticized version of non-violence and the people that made up these movements.

The second assumption is a mistaken theoretical account of white moral psychology that assumes that whites experience positive ethical transformations as a result of exemplary forms of political activism (i.e. nonviolence) by racialized minorities as they respond to racist violence. But Hooker discusses the fact that there is no evidence that this is true, particularly in our current “post-racial” society with a high degree of white resentment against Blacks and Latino/as. Even in the case of Black unarmed children being murdered by police officers, there is a need to portray each victim of brutality as innocent and deserving of care and citizenship rather than focusing on these deaths as part of a racially unjust system.

Finally, Hooker discusses the third assumption as a characterization of non-violent protest as sacrifice, which she points out, does not necessarily correspond with the way participants in black protest movements actually frame their own actions as defiance or resistance. She uses interpretations of an iconic photograph of Dorothy Counts, one of the first Black students involved in desegregation, as an example. In the photo Hooker references, Dorothy is walking to the school, followed by a mob of white protesters. Many readings of this photograph have centered on Black sacrifice, assuming Dorothy is afraid as she engages in this peaceful protest by going to school and refusing to engage with the mob. In fact, however, Hooker shares that Dorothy’s own reading of her actions are those of defiance, not acquiescence: “if you look at the picture the right way, you see what I see. What I see is that all of those people are behind me. They did not have the courage to get up in my face.”

At the end of her talk, Hooker connects these problematic assumptions to the real world consequences that Black Lives Matters protesters today face as (too many) whites call them criminals and consider them unjustified in their deployment of violence (and nonviolence). There is no room for Black anger and outrage. Thus Hooker asserts that, in this context, peaceful acquiescence will not in fact do the job of creating racial justice. Instead, riots (she uses the term purposefully to leverage its discomfort), or “fugitive black politics” might be a better form of democratic repair for African Americans. They may not always be a solution to structural problems and institutionalized injustices, but they do allow black citizens to express their pain and make their losses visible, and Hooker argues they can help us to theorize how engaging in a politics of active resistance might be crucial to achieving racial justice. Responsibility for racial justice does not lie with those who suffer from racism and so we must stop expecting sacrifice to be enough.

Commentary on Kim Potowski’s Talk, “Maximizing Latino Spanish Proficiency Through Dual Language Education”, by ARC Student Fellow Michelle Johnson-McSweeney

In her talk, “Maximizing Latino Spanish proficiency though dual language education,” Kim Potowski  identifies two major problems with how the United States education system treats language education. The first is that the United States does a terrible job of maintaining non-English languages, and the second is that second language education is our schools (also called “foreign” language education) starts too late and is largely ineffective. Her research is focused on one educational solution that addresses both problems: Dual language education.

There are three types of educational programs that serve English Language Learning (ELL) students. The first is English-only with English as a Second Language (ESL) support. The second is Transitional Language Education (TLE) where students use their first language as a support until they have English language proficiency. The goal of both ESL and TLE is English proficiency, not dual language proficiency. They are subtractive in the sense that students often lose their first language in order to acquire their second. The goal of Dual Language programs, the third program model and unfortunately by far the least common, is dual language proficiency, meaning that students add to their skills without losing any others. All too often, however, assessment is only conducted in English. Potowski’s study seeks to address this issue by assessing the Spanish language skills of students in Spanish/English Dual Language Education programs.

The results from Potowski’s research show that among students who have some level of Spanish proficiency (i.e., they speak Spanish at home, in the classroom, or are otherwise exposed to Spanish in their lives) and are enrolled in Dual Language programs performed better than students enrolled in English-only programs on tests of academic literacy. This, in and of itself, should not be surprising and it is what Potowski predicted. Yet, sometimes the expected findings are the most important because they had never been stated before. This, in effect, was the biggest take-away from Potowski’s research at this stage, that students develop proficiency in written Spanish as well as English.

I am looking forward to the future of this research as she moves in to analyzing the spoken communication as well. It is nearly taken for granted among linguists that spoken and written language are different language forms, and that a person can be completely fluent in a language yet not know how to write it. I expect that the analysis of students’ spoken language skills will only serve to further reinforce the need for Dual Language Education in the United States. Not only is it an additive approach to education, but students who emerge from these programs are bilingual in a country experiencing a serious lack of bilingual adults.

~ Michelle Johnson-McSweeney

 

 

Commentary on Veronica Benet-Martinez’s “The Psychology of Multicultural Experiences and Identities: Social, Personality, and Cultural Perspectives” by ARC Student Fellow Eduardo Ho

The complex and intertwined world of “multicultural identit(ies)” was presented from a psychological social psychology perspective (as opposed to a sociological social psychology view), that is, from the perspective that zooms-in to the individual level, by psychologist and faculty member at the University Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona) Verónica Benet-Martínez (BM).  The connotations of the multiplicity of roles that people possess and enact nowadays are far more complex than they have ever been, as presently, people can take on roles that they did not traditionally take on before (e.g. the stay-at-home dad, the woman CEO, etc.)  People may be comfortable with the multiplicity of roles they play in their daily lives, however, they are not comfortable with their own multicultural identities – as it is “like having multiple husbands”, stated BM.  To which culture do I belong the most?  “When I am in one environment I feel X but people consider me Y and the reverse is also true.”  These are some of the ruminating thoughts that go through the multicultural citizen’s mind.  (Surprisingly, BM made no reference to postmodern theories of self-identity, which would have provided material for an excellent discussion.)  But, what exactly is a multicultural identity?  How does culture and ethnicity shape our identity and personality?  How have individuals who have internalized more than one culture develop a cohesive multicultural identity?  These are some of the questions that BM seeks to address in her research.

BM made the choice in the talk to use the terms bicultural and multicultural interchangeably.  This, perhaps, was an unfortunate choice.  Regardless, her definition of the bi(multi)-cultural individual is actually an anthropological / semiotic one: it is an individual with exposure to two (or more) cultures that has come to possess the systems of meanings and practices associated with these cultures (e.g. beliefs, values, language, etc.)  Thus, there are three domains of acculturation (i.e. practices, values, identifications), but these domains do not change all at the same time, as there are differences in the level of displayed acculturation, like for example behavior observed in the private domain versus the public domain.

BM rejects the model of Culture A vs. Culture B as indicative of anyone’s cultural affiliation, given that for her, individual relationships to cultures are not categorical, but rather partial and plural.  Instead of the Culture A vs. Culture B model, BM’s revised view falls within that of Cultural Frame Switching: there is a switch between different cultural interpretative frames or meaning systems in response to cultural cues.  During this part of the discussion BM interjected with a comparison between this framework and one which recently began to gain traction in Linguistics, namely translanguaging.  The comparison, even though interesting, raises some questions of substance.  Under the translanguaging view of language, the grammar of the speaker only contains features of what society has come to know [and label] as “languages”, and the translanguag-er deploys these resources freely, “transcending” the two or three (or more) languages that he or she manages.  It is true, there is no division between Language A or Language B in the mind of the translanguager, but the meaning and grammatical systems remain the same (i.e. for the most part static) for each feature of each language.  These meaning and grammatical systems are part of the “system” of the language shared by and with other speakers (similar to what Saussure defined as langue), and these are not necessarily permeable to the influence of cultural pressures.

The discussion about Cultural Frame Switching included a description of a series of experiments with Chinese Americans subjects, and how priming would help predict certain behaviors in the US Anglo subjects vis-a-vis the Chinese subjects, according to their culture.  When speaking about priming, BM returned to the issue of language, as she defined it as the most important primer of all, since you “effectively activate everything that is associated with that language”.  Even though this strikes me as an overarching generalization regarding the relationship of any language with a ‘specific’ culture, the point still stands.  In addition, it might be worth mentioning that the juncture at which BM’s work and linguistic theory cross each other would probably be a fascinating area of discussion and research.

The talk included a vast array of indexes and graphs.  The most salient measuring index was the BII: Bicultural Identity Integration.  The limited understanding that I was able to gain of this index is that BII measures how an individual bridges or blends different cultures.  BM made it clear that bicultural integration is not a trait, but rather it’s malleable.  An interesting fact was that BII increases when individuals recall positive bicultural experiences and it decreases when recalling negative bicultural experiences.  Biculturals, however, are more creative and innovative when compared to their monocultural cohorts in professional environments and in school settings (e.g. MBA programs).

The most powerful point of the presentation, for me personally, was the insight BM shared about how when one individual only operates within one culture, the perspective that individual has on that particular culture is less profound than the perspective another individual has on that same culture, if instead, he or she operates in a space that exchanges or constantly negotiates between two or more cultures.  That is, the bicultural owns a comparative perspective that the monocultural cannot possess.  Questions from the audience ranged from the historicity of biculturalism to the teaching and learning implications of biculturalism.  Age was a factor that was never mentioned in the talk or the Q&A: for example, is there an age range for the bicultural individual to gain a greater or lesser sense of belonging into a second culture?  That would be an interesting piece of information to have.  In sum, the talk was thought-provoking and very informative, with ideas that people may take all too for granted, and it managed to show the impressive body of research and researchers working on this very important topic.

~ Eduardo Ho-Fernández

 

Marcella Bencivenni, “US communism, anticommunism and espionage: The Case of Carl Marzani, 1947-1953”. Commentary by ARC Student Fellow Daniel Vallee

The story of Carl Marzani (1912 – 1994) does not fail to disappoint.  Hostos College Historian Marcella Bencivenni presents the highly politicized life of Marzani—a charismatic and important figure of the Left—as the first victim of McCarthyism, the US national witch-hunt for communist spies and sympathizers during the Cold War.  Bencivenni’s narrative of Marzani serves as a timely (the 2016 US presidential nominations are a spectacle to behold) microcosm illustrating the oftentimes frustrating clash of political leaders, discourses of national security, public intellectuals, media narratives, and public opinion.  Bencivenni’s research, in preparation for her forthcoming book on Marzani, takes what one audience member called a “moderate stance” to the accusations of espionage hurled at Marzani, who served in the United States Government department of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS): the first intelligence office of government, predating the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

As members of the Marzani family looked on, Bencivenni described the impressive figure of Carl Marzani.  Marzani, migrating at the age of 12 from fascist Italy, was the son of a socialist postal worker father who refused to sign Mussolini’s loyalty pledge.  Subsequently they were forced to flee Rome for the mining community of Scranton, NY.  Marzani was a successful student, receiving scholarships to both Williams College and Oxford.  In Britain he joined the British communist party, and upon return to the US, joined the US communist party.

Marzani was a Marxist intellectual and excellent speaker and debater who would “talk at you” rather than with you.  A prolific writer, Marzani translated the Marxist theories of Gramsci, and wrote the first revisionist history of the cold war.   Notably, a young Bernie Sanders wrote an endorsement of Marzani’s memoir The Education of a Reluctant Radical.  Demonstrating a jack-of-all-trades flexibility, Marzani also directed Deadline for Action (Union Films, 1946).

Marzani’s intelligence and skills would be recognized by Office of Strategic Services (OSS) director William Donovan, who recruited Marzani.  Marzani’s tenure with the OSS, which according to one audience member “wouldn’t even be running if not for all the communists who worked there,” came to a grinding halt on March 17, 1947, when he was indicted by a federal grand jury—not for treason under the Smith Act, which might be expected —but rather under the False Claims Act, for defrauding the government.  What was the nature of the fraud?  Marzani’s denial of his membership with the communist party at his time of hiring at the OSS

The trial of Marzani was complicated from a legal perspective, but after a series of two split Supreme Court juries, on May 22, 1947, Carl Marzani was found guilty on all 11 counts and was sentenced to 1-3 years of jail time.  Most relevant to the case were the competing discourses from the Right and Left news media.  The Right’s narrative was epitomized in headlines such as “How the Reds do Business” by J. Parnell Thomas, who would ironically, become a civil servant himself and be slapped with the same charge as Marzani.  Thomas would only serve 6 months of his term, unlike Marzani.

On the opposite side of the political spectrum, the Leftist discourse of the Marzani trial pointed to a pervading anti-intellectualism, decline of freedom, and the rise of fear within a police-state.  An audience member who worked as a professor at the time of the trial told the audience about a deep fear among her academic community of being identified as a communist or sympathizer.  Eleanor Roosevelt herself was outspoken about the attacks on freedom and the rise of fear.

In addition to describing the two prevailing narratives of the Marzani case, Bencivenni detailed a number of inconsistencies in the trial itself: the conditions of Marzani’s hiring, supporting documents such as the Venona Files, and the race/ethnicity of the nearly all-Black jury, which was nearly unheard of at the time.  For the sake of brevity, I will write here about only one particular aspect of the case.  Those interested in learning more must wait for Bencivenni’s book.

In the trial, the question of Marzani’s communist party membership and his hiring by the OSS is of import.  Bencivenni notes that despite perjuring himself (by the way, with the blessing of his Catholic mother) by denying his membership in the communist party, a closer look shows that Marzani was really rather open about his radical past.  Actual spies never had records of openness such as Marzani’s.  For example, Director William Donovan, a smart, conservative Republican general was not averse to hiring radicals to win his competition with rival Edgar Hoover, head of FBI.  In fact, after Marzani’s initial screening by the OSS the FBI informs the agency that he was a member of the communist party, after which Marzani is cleared of wrongdoing by the OSS.  If this is the case, asks Bencivenni, then why deny membership in the communist party in the trial?  Bencivenni states that the answer to Marzani’s denial of membership is that he’d have to name names, which is the ultimate objective of Hoover and the US government; moreover, Marzani underestimated his potential prison term, which he anticipated would only last a few months.

Bencivenni closes by reminding us that archival data doesn’t provide enough evidence to prove that Carl Marzani was a spy; moreover, the element of espionage is not the most important part of the story.  The heart of the Marzani narrative is the struggle with notions of freedom, such as intellectual freedom.  Marzani was a vocal and public voice of dissent to the cold war consensus.  Bencivenni goes as far as describing this message as prophetic, and as far as prophetic voices are fiercely suppressed and attacked this much appears true.  The result of the Marzani trial was that that communism as an intellectual and political project—irrespective of its intrinsic qualities—was suppressed.  The account is a scathing critique of an ideology of freedom, supposedly a guiding US national ideology.  According to Bencivenni, the result was a diminishment of America as an idea, supporting an atmosphere of anti-intellectualism.  As a result communism is deprived of its legitimacy in the US, in contrast to European states.  In the US, the academy is one of the only places remaining in which one may engage with ideas and projects typically labelled “radical.”

And so we return to the characteristic timeliness of the Bencivenni’s interpretation of the life of Carl Marzani.  Judging from the political rise of an extremist Right and a far-left presidential nominees (Trump, Sanders), it is apparent that the electorate resonates with the complex mixture of stump-speeches that contain messages fear, xenophobia, economic insecurity, as well as a growing repudiation of social and economic inequality, and a desire for political reform.  As in the historical period of Marzani, we are witness to both a discourse of anti-intellectualism, and systemic political change.  We would do well to be reminded by the tendency for some political leaders to lead humanity towards the former rather than the latter.

–Daniel Vallee

 

 

Charlotte Brooks, “Citizenship, Extrality, Expatriation: Chinese American Citizens in China’s Treaty Ports”. Commentary by ARC Student Fellow Alisa Algava

How can transnational histories illuminate the dynamics of a racialized nation-state? In what political, legal, and economic contexts might people claim and/or reject citizenship? Who counts as a citizen? In her talk about Chinese American citizens who immigrated to China in the early twentieth century, Charlotte Brooks shared vivid stories of lives left unexamined by historians while also raising questions that critically resonate with contemporary issues of immigration and inequality.

Between 1900 and 1937, one in five Chinese American citizens returned to China with the intention to settle and stay for the rest of their lives. Many were second generation Chinese Americans who, having seen and experienced the individual discrimination and structural inequity resulting from white supremacy in immigration laws, schooling, employment, and housing, anticipated downward social and economic mobility despite their overall educational success in the U.S. system. Almost all eventually resided in China’s Treaty Ports where foreign residents typically benefited from the imposition of unequal/imperialist treaties in both economic opportunity and the rights of extraterritoriality, or extrality, which meant that their crimes and legal disputes would be governed by the laws of their own nations. Many took advantage of an informal version of Chinese citizenship to work, enter Chinese government positions, or sometimes even own land outside of the treaty ports, opportunities not available to foreigners. However, as the lives of those studied by Brooks illustrate, issues of citizenship, race, identity, rights, and belonging intertwined in complex ways for the Chinese Americans attempting to create new lives for themselves and fit into these polarized cities.

One of many stories of inclusion/exclusion, in 1929 an athlete and a lawyer named Wai-yuen “Nick” Char got into a fistfight on a baseball field in the French concession and was accused of injuring a Chinese citizen. Although he lived in the international settlement and believed he was protected, when Nick Char left for business he was arrested, charged with assault, and found guilty. He claimed extrality and the U.S. government demanded his release. But Chinese officials declared that extrality didn’t extend to him because the children of Chinese fathers are Chinese citizens, and, in fact, he had used that criterion to justify his right to practice law. At that point, the U.S. consulate deserted him and he remained in prison for two months. However, Nick Char’s status as an athlete, a lawyer, and a WWI veteran, along with a possible intervention by Chiang Kai-Shek, eventually saved him. He went back to Honolulu and never returned to China.

The United States’ exclusion and abandonment of its own citizens was not unusual in the treaty ports during this time. Within the ultranationalist, anti-immigrant U.S. context in which citizenship was (and still is) narratively, if not legally, defined according to racial and cultural terms, an unmistakable pattern of discrimination surfaces in the stories Brooks uncovered from newspapers, consular records, and immigration records/interviews. For example, by forcing Chinese Americans to communicate only in English, not registering their businesses, or even refusing to grant passport renewals, the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou regularly and effectively stripped Chinese Americans—but not white Americans—of their citizenship rights and protections without any due process at all. Justifications included statements alleging that Chinese Americans “have little regard for American ideals of institutions” or are “too Chinese” or are “living as a Chinese.” To what extremes the racialized U.S. nation-state will go to protect whiteness is worth examining, both then and certainly now.

Ultimately, Brooks problematizes a dominant assumption in U.S. history and politics—that this country tells the tale of itself as a nation of immigrants, a supposed magnet and light of justice and freedom attracting all—when she asked, “Who wants to leave the United States?” and then answered, “A lot of people it turns out.”

~ Alisa Algava

 

Claudia Diehl, “Between Ethnic Options and Ethnic Boundaries – Recent Polish and Turkish Migrants’ Identification with Germany”. Commentary by ARC Student Fellow Eric Ketcham.

In the academic literature, there is much discussion on how and whether experiences and perceptions of discrimination lead to negative assimilation outcomes. However there is a lack of empirical evidence exploring this link. Claudia Diehl, Professor of Sociology at the University of Konstanz, Germany, examines the available data, and presents results from a recently collected mini-panel study of new immigrants to compare Turkish and Polish immigrants in Germany.

There are two paths by which discrimination may affect assimilation. In the first path, xenophobic attitudes in the receiving country lead to discriminatory behavior, which in turn leads to limited opportunities for migrants, maintaining ethnic boundaries and reducing assimilation into the host society. In the second path, xenophobic attitudes in the receiving country lead to discriminatory behavior, migrants’ perceptions of which limit their motivation to assimilate, again maintaining ethnic boundaries and reducing assimilation into the host society. While these two paths are by no means mutually exclusive, they must be considered as separate paths, since limited opportunities affect the ability to assimilate, even if migrants do not perceive the discrimination, and perceived discrimination may limit motivation to assimilate, even if all opportunities are equal.

While levels of discriminatory behavior are lower in Germany than in other contexts such as the United States, and according to the German Socioeconomic Panel many migrants state they have not personally experienced discrimination, many migrants do report perceived group discrimination. However these perceptions of discrimination are linked to life situation, personality, public opinion, and assimilation itself, so it is unclear what perceptions of discrimination actually measure. In addition, despite relatively low, and declining, xenophobic attitudes in Germany, it is not clear how these attitudes translate into discriminatory behavior. Despite the relatively lower levels of discrimination, it is unclear how this discrimination is perceived by migrants, as well as how these perceptions affect assimilation outcomes. Several studies have suggested that there is no link between reduced availability of opportunity and assimilation outcomes in education and the labor market – ethnic penalties can be explained by socioeconomic status rather than ethnicity itself with ethnic residuals remaining only for the upper limits of discrimination, however even these residuals could be explained by limited cultural and social resources. Perceived discrimination, as well, has been found to have no link to assimilation outcomes such as remigration intentions, religiosity, and the labor market. However it is difficult to establish causation because perceptions of discrimination and outcomes may fall outside of a given observation period, and perceived discrimination against the self does not include perceived group discrimination, which may also play a role in assimilation outcomes.

Diehl’s current work, from the SCIP project at the Norface Research Programme on Migration, seeks to correct for some of these uncertainties by using mini-panel data from newly arrived immigrants, collecting information on identification with the receiving country, experiences and perceptions of discrimination, and assimilation outcomes. Her results show that, upon migrating to Germany, Turks and Poles start off with similar levels of identification that rise over the first year or so, however Turks’ level of identification flattens and then declines, while Poles’ level of identification continues to rise over time. Moreover, Poles show increasing levels of social assimilation, low levels of perceived discrimination and low levels of perceived value incompatibility over time, while Turks show just the opposite – stagnating levels of social assimilation, increasing perceptions of discrimination, and high levels of value incompatibility. Both groups, perhaps not surprisingly, show increased language skills over time. Overall, social assimilation enhances identification with Germany, however perceived discrimination hinders this process for Turks. In short, Turks and Poles enter Germany with similar levels of identification, however higher levels of perceived discrimination among Turks leads to lower levels of identification with Germany over time compared to Poles.

Establishing a link between perceived discrimination and assimilation among new migrants opens up the question of how this link changes across generations. Will these differences between groups persist into the second or third generation in Germany? Do perceptions of discrimination affect the second generation in the same way as the first? Separately, given the current Syrian refugee crisis, and Germany as an important receiving country for refugees, it would be telling to extend this research to refugees, and Syrians in particular. How does the highly politicized and mixed context of reception affect Syrians’ assimilation in both the short and long term? Do Syrians tend not to have perceived discrimination personally, but perceive discrimination against the group, as many migrants report in the German Socioeconomic Panel? And, does the public discussion of Syrian migrants change the context of reception for Turks, Poles, and migrants from other countries, and potentially change perceptions of discrimination among all migrant groups? Diehl’s work is important in understanding the timely topic of processes of assimilation, as the public and political discourse on immigration becomes increasingly prominent in Western Europe and the United States.

-Eric Ketcham

Leslie McCall, “How Americans Think Politically about Economic Inequality”. Commentary by ARC Student Fellow Helen Panagiotopoulos

U.S. commentators on inequality have historically inhabited elite positions in American society. Given their postionality—as academics, journalists, pollsters, and politicians—it is not surprising that political and policy responses to inequality in the U.S. are comprised of three main discourses: (1) the tolerance perspective, which draws on the “American dream” ideology, where hard work will result in “fair” outcomes, (2) the ignorance view, which explains that, even though Americans generally desire less inequality, they are largely unaware of how much it has risen, and (3) the ambivalence approach—adopted by experts in the field that are ambivalent because they are uncertain in how to address it, particularly in regards to racial inequality. Leslie McCall takes up a fourth approach—the opportunity model—in her talk on How Americans Think Politically about Economic Inequality. This perspective arises from the desire for equal opportunity and widespread access to employment and education.

McCall’s discussion of the opportunity model focuses on popular American beliefs about inequality and their political implications. Americans generally believe that income differences are too large, inequality continues to exist to benefit the rich and powerful, and large income differences are unnecessary for prosperity. On the issue of “hard work” and its role in “getting ahead,” the American public continues to buy into this ideology, yet there is broad recognition that there are barriers to opportunity such as parental education, coming from a wealthy family, and knowing the right people. The political implications of these views result in emphasizing the limitations of redistributive models—models that largely rest on elite partisan approaches, such as the conservative tendency to equalize opportunities like economic growth rather than outcomes. Democrats, on the other hand, have focused on “equalizing outcomes” through taxing and social spending, while other alternatives like the Civil Rights model advocate for racial and gender equity by aiming to equalize outcomes. While the Civil Rights model developed approaches to expand education and economic opportunities for groups discriminated against by virtue of their race, ethnicity, or gender, McCall underscores that the anti-discrimination strategy has proven insufficient on its own. Equal opportunities in the workplace and in universities through antidiscrimination policies remain within the opportunity paradigm by equalizing outcomes (through affirmative action) to equalize opportunities.

Responses to inequality have, therefore, focused on opportunities rather than outcomes or government intervention. Tailored to appeal to the American majority, who care more about opportunity than equality, Democrats, too, respond to growing inequality through the opportunity model. Given the political implications of American beliefs about inequality, several questions emerge from McCall’s discussion. How does, for example, the American public define the poor? What populations are left out in this model? What types of employment and opportunities in education exist, for instance, for immigrants in the U.S.? Do antidiscrimination laws protect migrant workers? What are the limitations in opportunities for these groups? Can inequality be addressed without engaging in policy, such as immigration reform? These questions foreground whether there can ever be equality of opportunity for all, an assumption the opportunity model appears to rely on.