Is it the Only Way?

-Jessica Colaizzi

          So I’m sure we’re all familiar with policies such as “No pets allowed”, “Smoking is not permitted”, and “Bus Lane Only”. Signs like these are ones we can see posted and painted almost everywhere we go. They are procedures determined by certain people of authority that are ultimately produced to maintain order. But what if you walked into a store, entered a park, or drove on a busy street and were told that you were only allowed to speak English?

In recent times (from the mid-twentieth century to present-day), people of the united States have joined forces to protest the use of non-English languages in both public and private spaces. This group of people who followed what is known as the “English-Only” movement share sentiments against the use of foreign languages in election and educational environments. In the 1960s, the movement gained support primarily in response to governmental action of multilingual election practices. In both Kathryn A. Woolard’s piece, “Sentences in the Language Prison: The Rhetorical Structuring of an American Language Policy Debate” and Macedo’s “The Colonialism of the English-Only Movement”, people involved in the crusade called for English to become the official language of the United States at state as well a federal levels. The ideas of creating a monolingual society are closely tied to colonialistic practices, where a dominant force seeks to overthrow tendencies of inferior people (i.e. those who don’t speak English). Proponents of the “English-Only” period wanted to perpetuate certain aspects of culture and preserve English as the primary language. Woolard describes San Francisco’s Proposition O as a plan to urge amendments of the Voting Rights Act so that election materials were not required to be federally funded in other languages. The main focus for this proposal was on the notion that if an individual was unable to read/comprehend a ballot printed in English while voting, then they are completely uninformed and should not be given the opportunity to vote. Woolard also mentions that opponents of the proposition believe that the movement is driven by “a deeper anti-minority and anti-immigrant sentiment…”(126). Basically, many people who advocate bilingualism see this official English campaign as a xenophobic reaction to the use of languages other than English. 

          The image above illustrates the English-Only sentiment during the colonization period of America, where the colonizers have resorted to posting a “welcoming” sign to Plymouth Colony, with the subtitle “An English-Only Community”. The irony is that it is a welcome sign, inviting “outsiders” like the Native American to the right of the picture, but at the same time prohibiting the use of another language. The sign is described as the idea that those who do not speak English are not invited, and that a sign was needed in order to get this point across.

          Centuries later, attitudes toward monolingualism in the United States continue to shift, especially from powerful figures like President Barack Obama. The following YouTube video comes from one of Obama’s speeches during his campaign in 2008, where he addresses the issue of English Only in America.

          Here we see President Obama lean toward one side of the issue regarding the practice of multiple languages in the United States. He makes a good point about how foreigners who travel to this country usually know how to communicate in English, but when Americans travel to other foreign countries, we rely on the use of common sayings such as “merci beaucoup”. He puts an emphasis on the importance of knowing how to speak multiple languages; that this country should not just run on English. By providing immigrants with the opportunity to learn English, Obama believes that it will facilitate the process of assimilation for these foreigners. President Obama brings to the surface the idea that as immigrants learn to speak English, citizens of the United States should learn to another language as well (more specifically, Spanish). Controversy on this topic is evident in the comments that were made beneath the video by members of the YouTube community. Many people take the side that being bi- or multilingual is beneficial and advantageous. On the other end of the spectrum, there are those who feel that English should be the official language of the United States, and that other languages don’t need to be learned. Some also insist that immigrants are not trying hard enough to learn English because this country already does too much to accommodate them and their “disability” of only speaking one language.

          A few months ago, one of my friends had shown me a video of Tim James’s campaign for Governor of Alabama. We both immediately laughed at it after watching, thinking that this guy couldn’t actually be serious. The way he spoke about only speaking English in the state of Alabama was quite stubborn and condescending. Take a look and decide for yourself.

           Here we see a typical prominent, Southern white male, advocating for the deletion of multilingual driver’s exams, and the establishment of English as the official language. In regards to speaking English he says, “If you want to live here, learn it!” He is very straightforward with his ideas about what saves money and “makes sense”  – that is, only speaking and using the English language. While there are supporters of Tim James’s campaign, there are still many who find it absolutely absurd and comical. Watch this parody to see just how others have received Tim James’s proposal for English Only in Alabama.

          Not only is this comedian playing off of Tim James’s corny and dramatic filming effects, he also portrays James as a die-hard American and English-speaker who wants to get rid of all non-English names and words. Although quite over-the-top, this video tries to make the point that this country naturally develops from the integration of other cultures. The creation of multicultural establishments and other “foreign” labeled items such as “Don’s Ristorante” and “Venti” are seen as un-American, things that disrupt society’s patriotism and unity. Obviously this parody goes to the extremes, but I think it tries to prove the idea that Tim James’s campaign commercial was a little extreme about the use of English only and an abolishment of other language practices. Could these really be ideals of the land of the free?

Language Policy and Ideology in the United States

Natalie
This week’s readings introduced the metaphors of Latinos in American public discourse (Santa Ana), the effects of language policies on linguistic minority communities (Baltodano), the functions of language ideologies in academic settings (González), and the experiences of a Hispanic child distancing himself from his native language by learning English (Rodriguez).

First, Otto Santa Ana offers a brief history of the demographics and academic performance of California schools in “American Discourse on Nation and Language: The “English for Children” Referendum.” Santa Ana discusses Proposition 227, a ballot proposition that advocated the sole use of English in California classrooms and dismantled the state’s bilingual education programs. While describing the legislation, Santa Ana mentions that the state “regularly certified that many school districts with English-only programs performed no better than their bilingual counterparts” (199). Nonetheless, Proposition 227 was passed by California voters in 1998, presumably to combat the perceived correlation between the state’s falling academic standards and rising Latino population. As Santa Ana points out, neither the media nor the public considered “the educational disparity of language-minority children to be the result of structural factors (such as the inferior school plants or weaker teaching staffs) or the economic straits of their working-class parents” (207). It became clear that Proposition 227 was not having the desired academic effect on students—a problem that Santa Ana relates to the common misconception that language proficiency is instantaneous, explaining that language fluency does not imply language literacy (210, 218). He writes that linguistic development is a lifelong process, ultimately claiming: “California’s failure to provide for immigrant and other children is due to chronic underfunding of public education, a devalued teaching profession, society’s degradation of nonmainstream students, and the electorate’s antiquated conception of public education” (224).

Similarly, Marta P. Baltodano argues in “Latino Immigrant Parents and the Hegemony of Proposition 227” that language policies like Proposition 227 have detrimental effects on the education of immigrant children. Baltodano also blames the public education system and school officials for denying opportunities to nonmainstream students, in this case Latino immigrant children and teenagers. For Baltodano, Proposition 227’s classification of the need for bilingual education as a learning disability (as opposed to a skill) solidifies her opinion of the legislation (251). Latino immigrant parents, however, argue that the prohibition of non-English languages in the classroom hurts their children’s academic achievement, claim that school administrators purposefully keep them uninformed about language policies, believe that the procedure to acquire waivers for their children to receive bilingual education is deliberately arbitrary and confusing, and fear the reaction of the state to their submission of bilingual education waivers (248-249). Though these parents may play a generally active role in the education of their children, Baltodano characterizes Latino immigrant parents as “politically paralyzed” and unable to challenge the policies of “wealthy corporate individuals” (251). Thus, she encourages Latino immigrant parents to reformulate community activism by organizing politically, appropriating public spaces, and initiating “systematic litigation” to protest the repression of language rights in the United States (252).

Around the same time as Proposition 227 was being implemented in California, Arizona was also debating language policies. As Norma González details in “Children in the Eye of the Storm: Language Socialization and Language Ideologies in a Dual-Language School,” Arizona Proposition 203 was passed by Arizona voters in 2000 while she was conducting her study of the Bilingual Magnet school. The video below shows a school that employs a similar bilingual education program as the school in González’s study employed for a period of time.

Although the school featured in this news story is located in Virginia and the school featured in González’s study is located in Arizona, many conclusions can be drawn from the atmospheres of both academic institutions. Notice the African American female who speaks at 3:09. Contrary to the initial situation at the Bilingual Magnet school, she is quite articulate in her second language, even though she has only been learning it for a few years. As González explains, the bilingual education program at the Bilingual Magnet school was restructured after teachers observed that English-dominant students were not effectively learning Spanish (165). Once Spanish was established as “the language of academic, administrative, and social interaction,” the school became “a space for children to choose from repertoires of identities and subjectivities by providing them with ideological spaces for trying on and trying out multidiscursive practices,” which is exactly what occurs at the London Towne elementary school in Virginia (165, 170). Furthermore, schools provide “an ideological space not only for the development of bilingualism and biliteracy but also for multidiscursive practices and readings of the world” (173). In the words of London Towne kindergarten teacher Helen Arzola at 2:00, “The goal of the dual-language program is to teach low-income Hispanic children English—good English, social English, and academic English. And that can only happen if they have a good, solid foundation in their first language.” The news reporter also notes at 3:38 how the language practices of Americans compare to the rest of the world and how the lack of funding is hindering language education in America, stating, “American school children still don’t learn languages as well as [children] in other countries. In fact, many U.S. schools are cutting foreign languages to save money while some states are passing English-only laws, but schools like this one still believe multilingualism is the best way to keep the door from closing on their children’s futures.”

The experiences of the children at London Towne reflect those of author Richard Rodriguez, who provides a firsthand account of how it feels to prioritize learning a second, “public” language over preserving a native, “private” language (34). “Aria” chronicles Rodriguez’s childhood realization that, in order to achieve “public success,” he must not only understand the English language, but be able to express himself in it (38). As an elementary school student, Rodriguez had to develop the same skills that the students at London Towne are currently developing, for the very same reason: to become a viable competitor in the market for educational and occupational opportunities. Hence, as Arzola mentioned, Rodriguez needed to learn English so he could communicate efficiently and effectively using different registers of the same language in different situations. To assess the importance of the ability to switch language registers, I have posted below a video of Jamie Foxx performing a comedic skit about the drug scene in Hollywood. For comparison, I have also posted a link to a video of his acceptance speech at the Academy Awards after winning Best Actor for the 2004 biopic Ray. Unfortunately, the video itself would not post into the blog.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2a1nzAciMc

 
In these videos, the registers that Foxx employs are easily distinguishable—in the first, Foxx is entertaining a predominantly African American audience as a comedian; in the second, Foxx is accepting a prestigious award in front of the American film industry’s finest. Not only is there a lack of profound statements and sentimental remarks in Foxx’s comedy, but there is an obvious absence of swear words, racial slurs, and crude jokes in his acceptance speech. It seems as if Jamie Foxx has drawn the same conclusion as Richard Rodriguez: language is the key to success. If these two men can learn to manipulate language, they can achieve the desired public success. In this case, it appears that both men have indeed succeeded; Foxx is an accomplished actor and Rodriguez is a published author.

This week’s readings focused on language policies and language ideologies. The authors of these readings examined various aspects of bilingual education programs. From their depiction of the deterioration of these programs, it can be inferred that the solution to revitalizing bilingual education in the United States lies with the attitudes and actions of Latino immigrant families.

Word Up!

By Erin Newman

Over the years “Ebonics” has become such a highly politicized word that many are misled or disillusioned by some of the stereotypical connotations that have come to surround it. Since the resolution by the Oakland school board in 1996 to recognize Ebonics as a language in its own right, as opposed to just a dialect of English, and treat speakers of African American English as students who would entail English as a Second Language Instruction, the issue has become widely contested in the media as it applies to academic and professional domains. Such a large contingent of people was upset by the resolution that it leads one to wonder what the underlying implications are that have led to such a controversy. Because it is such a complicated and delicate issue that involves speculation about socialization, linguistic legitimacy, and cultural exposure, it is difficult to bring new light to the matter. It might, however, be beneficial to expose more people to the different layers of the issue, especially from perspectives within the African American community. This is not to assume that all African Americans speak AAE, but the population for whom it is largely their home and community language can offer genuine “in-group” perspectives.

In a documentary that aired on PBS in 2008, African Americans from different parts of North Carolina offer their individual experiences or explanations of the way African American English functions in their own lives as well as in society, and its social relationship to Standard English. This segment from the documentary conveys the love that the African American Community has for language and the significance it holds in their culture. It shows how AAE varies from region to region, just as dialects of other languages do, as well as the language’s evolution through the generations as it has become progressively influenced by hip-hop culture.  Speakers in the documentary communicate that although some regional varieties have pronounced differences between them, they are mutually intelligible from one another (which is not always the case with dialects of the same language).

One interviewee expresses how there is a strong in-group/out-group distinction between the people with whom one speaks AAE and those one chooses to speak Standard English with. He expresses that the people with whom he speaks AAE he feels a sense of mutual understanding and a level of closeness. He says that until he reaches a certain degree of comfort or familiarity with some one, he speaks a more common English. Speaking AAE thus constitutes a more intimate and familiar space. The subjects in the documentary do not attribute any special status to their language, but essentially express that it serves the same function as do any other languages. It is a unifying force and vehicle of solidarity for members of their community, and the spoken word holds special cultural significance and beauty for them given their strong tradition of oral history. 

When the interviewees reference themselves and others who consciously choose to speak AAE or Standard English, they indicate that the fact that they have that capacity to switch between the two languages. This differs from the population of urban African American students taken into consideration in the Oakland public school board resolution because conversely, it was the lack of the ability to code-switch between AAE and Standard English which is what the resolution resulted from. It was the belief that the lack of academic success of this large percentage of students stemmed from an absence of the capacity to switch from AAE to Standard English. The assumption that the African American students from the Oakland public school district could not understand Standard English is a misdiagnosis, as the two languages are for the most part intelligible, especially for speakers of AAE who have more exposure to Standard English than speakers of Standard English have to AAE. The issue rather, seems to lie in the fact that students who speak AAE may understand Standard English, but do not necessarily respond in it. The resolution settled on instructing teachers in Ebonics in order to use the language as a tool to bridge between the two languages while enabling the students to maintain their home/community language.

At the end of the documentary segment, one of the interviewees brings up the question some speakers of AAE “struggle with internally” as to whether or not they should change their speech to a more common English in the broader realm of society. In other words, should they really modify their speech to “sound like white folk?”  The implications of this question can be read in a multitude of ways.

One way of looking at is: AAE has been accredited with the status of a distinct language system by the Oakland public school board, Linguistic Society of America and other social institutions nationwide.  Therefore, it should be treated as other non-standard English languages. For the most part, people have to conform to the linguistic norm of Standard English in professional and academic spheres, as denoted by social expectations. AAE should be spoken and maintained, but just as speakers of other languages must learn and speak Standard English when participating in certain sectors of society, so too should speakers of AAE. Additionally, Standard English is not a variety of English that individuals are born speaking. White, English-speaking children come into school and must be taught the Standard form of English, as are students from any other background, race, or ethnicity that may speak another language. The reason success rates may be higher for them is because their linguistic taking-off point is closer to Standard English than is that of speakers of AAE. Also, AAE historically, has been demeaned by greater society, which does not necessarily facilitate the motivation to learn the Standard language that is spoken by those responsible for the derision. Essentially, AAE (or Ebonics) should be treated equally to other non-English languages, meaning that its status as a distinct language should be respected rather than ridiculed or demeaned, as this attitude seems to be the most productive way to enable speakers to maintain the language while being able to speak Standard English is environments where it is conventional to do so.

Language and Race - From Ebonics to Obama

by Whitney Childs

The 1996 Oakland school board decision to legitimize Ebonics, or African American Vernacular English (AAVE) created a whirlwind of media attention and criticism from a variety of sources - with this post I wanted to focus specifically on the often conservative and "PC" debates that stem from the political realm, but wanted to begin with further discussion on the Oakland school board debate.

Theresa Perry discussed the misrepresentation that the Oakland school board decision received in the media, describing the tendency of media sources to sum up the decision as abandoning Standard English in favor of teaching AAVE in schools. There was little attention paid to the true motivations behind the decision or teh details of the decision itself, just a rapid response of a variety of public figures to form a team of opposition on behalf of the African-American community. "Black and white, members of the religious right, liberal democrats, neoconservatives, staunch conservatives, let liberals, and the privileged -such was the reach of this unintentional coalition of individuals that, in the weeks and months after the passage of the Oakland resolution, vigorously registered their opposition to it" (Perry 2). This included figures who had previously expressed their devotion towards AVE and used it in their expressive works, such as Maya Angelou. Perry also described the representation of Ebonics in the media as coded in order to ensure that i generated "negative reactions from African-Americans" (5), manipulating it so that it created an association to slang and informality in the education setting.

The above is an excerpt from a 1996 newspaper article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that described the reaction of Jesse Jackson to the school board decision.  Jackson initially criticized the school board decision, labeling it an "unacceptable surrender", but later changed his opinion, saying that the meaning behind the decision had been misunderstood by the general public, and that the decision was more of an effort to "stop ignoring the youth in the margins". What I found most interesting about the decision was that it recognized Ebonics as a distinct language, yet also a cohesive language free of variety in the sense that it could be taught to teachers and parents. Jackson, however, framed Ebonics as a "language pattern" rather than a complete language. The district argued that Black English is the "primary language of many of its black students" and that because of this fact, they were falling behind academically and that recognizing AAVE as a legitimate language was a way in which they could help African-American students improve their reading and writing in "Standard English" and therefore be more successful. There was a constant back and forth between what Ebonics  was being labeled as compared to what it was in practice, and often there was a tendency to label Ebonics as one cohesive entity, creating a battle between that of White America (Standard English) and Black America (Ebonics), when in reality there is so much more linguistic heterogeneity that is present. There was also a label applied to Ebonics as "slang", or an inferior language deviant from Standard English that was not acceptable in more formal settings such as the classroom. The conversations became much larger than the school board's intentions and more focused on what conclusions people draw from their own perception of the school board ruling.

There are two key things that we have discussed in class and that I wanted to investigate further that are stemming from this ruling. The first is that it is implied that academic and professional success can only be achieved with the mastery of "Standard English", whatever that may be, and the second being that this decision and the subsequent chaos of opinions and criticism signified that it had very little to do with language and linguistic practices and more to do with race.

Over ten years later, and the debate regarding the connection between language and race continues. Game Change, released in 2010, gave a behind-the-scenes look at the 2008 United States presidential election. Within the book were assertions made by Harry Reid, who served as the Democratic majority leader. It is stated within the book that he claimed Obama could become the first African-American president in the United States because he was light-skinned and because he had "no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one" . His comments resulted in a great deal of criticism and a call for his resignation - he later apologized to President Obama, who accepted his apology and stated that he didn't believe Reid was racist. The ladies from "The View" discuss the incident below.

Whoop descries how the perception of African-Americans is different when it comes from the narrative of white people, saying that the absence of a dialect really means, "he's not going to scare white people". In this way, language is described from the point of view of users of the alleged dominant language of Standard English. She goes onto state that it also means that "he doesn't always sound like he's black". There is an inherent connection implied here that we have investigated in past readings in the assumption that depending on their race, people are expected to speak in certain linguistic patterns and that to deviate from this expectation creates markedness. Sherri Shepard goes onto state that she's "tired of people doing the PC thing" and that people voted for Barack Obama because of his qualifications, not because he was 'light-skinned' and therefore didn't appear threatening.

The women go onto discuss what is implied with the observation of a non-dialect, with Sherri asking that if this indicates that people who speak "differently" are not intelligent, and Whoopi responding by stating that observing a lack of dialect is just another way to say to someone, "you're so articulate" - this reinforces the idea that Standard English is in some way superior to all other dialects or variations of English and that to master Standard English is an indication of articulation and higher verbal capabilities, therefore showcasing a higher level of intelligence possessed by the speaker. She then goes onto state that in reference to speaking with a dialect, "Sherri can do it, I can do it, we use it when we want to", implying that she does possess the ability to speak in AAVE as well as Standard English and that she can employ code-switching to move back and forth depending on the situation, or, as she states, when she desires to switch. What I also noted about the debate amongst the women was the awkwardness that is evident in their attempts to navigate this discourse of race, language, and professional success. I would be interested to hear what everyones opinions are as to how they see this discourse continuing in the future, and what strides, if any, we feel we, as a society, have made in the conversations surrounding race and language.

It Doesn’t Matter if You’re Black Or White (Oh Wait, Yes it Does)

          Admittedly, Juno was and is one of my favorite movies of all time (I have a soft spot in my heart for any movie that takes place in a high school). I respected her sassy sense of wit and loved that there was a bad ass girl (minus that whole pregnancy bit) who talked just like I did - full of metaphors, playing with words and their meanings like a like a person juggling knives that are on fire - it was dangerous, some people wouldn’t get it, it could fail miserably, but when it succeeded it was amazing. Sure this is a little exaggerated, but the point still holds; Juno’s wordplay was a great topic of conversation when the film was released. Here is a clip from Juno to illuminate my point:
 

 Again, I talked just like Juno did - clearly a Non Standard form of English. However, my language skills were never reprimanded in high school - they were somewhat celebrated; I think the point made was that I had such a “mastery” of the English language that I could afford to play around with the nuances of word meaning, etc. To be honest, I was pretentious and thought I was smarter than everyone like a typical teenager, which in retrospect I have realized was so untrue (probably like many of my peers did as well once we got a little older) and that certain things I said were incredibly inappropriate, both the context that I used the words in and the words themselves.

It is interesting to me that Juno’s and my grammar and speech patterns were never an issue that needed to be corrected – Diablo Cody (the writer of Juno) was celebrated for being so forward thinking and my use of the language was overlooked, there was never any intervention taken to try to get us on the path of Standard English. Maybe I would have benefitted from some language intervention. Comparing this to the Oakland Ebonics controversy of 1996 in which the School Board did try to intervene on behalf of their under performing students. The Oakland School District proposed using African American Vernacular English as a tool to help under performing African American students achieve proficiency in Standard English to help bridge the education gap between white and black students. The Oakland Ebonics Resolutions state “…The English language acquisition and improvement skills of African-American students are as fundamental as is application of bilingual education principles for others whose primary languages are other than English” (Oakland Ebonics Resolutions) It was rightly believed by the school board that using the home language of AAVE that many students spoke would be a beneficial tool in the education process and extrapolated, that African American students had the right to an equal education and the resources that that equal education entails. Elaine Richardson corroborates in The Anti Ebonics Movement writing “We must find a way to take our knowledge of how language works into the country’s classrooms.” (Richardson, 167) Richardson believes that using languages in an educational setting is a beneficial tool to help students achieve language proficiency e.g. the use of bilingual education to promote greater learning.

There was an incredible outcry on the part of public in response to the Oakland School Board’s decision due to a huge misrepresentation of the by the media. A popular miniseries on VH1 that reminisced and commented on pop culture of decades past during the mid-2000s called I Love the 90’s had a blurb about the Oakland Debate, shown here:

Clearly the actors and comedians hired to analyze this point in history missed the mark on what the issue in Oakland really was about. What is really notable is Alfonso Ribeiro aka Carlton Banks’ strong response to the movement, calling it “the stupidest thing I had ever heard of.” How can Ribeiro feel so strongly against providing additional resources to under performing African American students? I doubt that if he knew the full extent of the issue he would feel the same way. I think you would be hard pressed to find someone who would say no to giving more funds in education to help students achieve at the level they should.

But that’s not really the issue, is it. What the Oakland controversy boils down to is race - language and language education is irrelevant. As was discussed in class, the public outcry has to do with the unsaid feeling that black students do not deserve more funds for their educational process. Viewed from a larger perspective, this public outcry against accommodating underperforming black students can be seen as the dominant white hegemony refusing to accommodate African Americans for fear that one day African Americans become the dominant group in American society. Thus accommodations to balance the educational playing field are scoffed at, or rejected. However there is a catch-22 for educational programs that do get passed, e.g. affirmative action. Minority students that get into elite schools are told that they are only there by affirmative action, i.e. that they did not have the merit to attend such a prestigious school on their own. I saw one such exchange on Facebook a few weeks ago; a Latino friend of mine posted on his status “nyu arts and sciences...nbd” meaning that he had received acceptance to NYU’s College of Arts and Sciences. One of his friends commented on it, saying “its nice to be ethnic isnt it lol.” This second student, jealous of the fact that my friend had gained acceptance to NYU tried to devalue his acceptance there due to his ethnicity, even though he is a model student and incredibly active in the community; in short a college campus’s dream. What is a minority to do – for it seems as if you are dammed if you do and dammed if you don’t.

To end this post on a happier note, I’ll leave you with a funny clip of Steve Harvey doing stand up in the 1990s about the Ebonics dictionary. I appreciate Steve Harvey’s appreciation and funny take of the value of education for Black America.

Also, here is Michael Jackson’s video for Black or White, in a nod to the title of this post.

- Holley Davis

What the matter wif Ebonics?

by Monica Burton

In 1996 the Oakland Unified School District introduced a resolution to incorporate Ebonics, the language spoken by the large population of African American students, in the classroom. The African American students accounted for over half of the district’s population and as a group had just below a “C” grade point average and made up 71 percent of the special education population. The Ebonics resolution was thus proposed to improve this group’s progress by easing the students’ transition to learning and speaking standardized English. By recognizing the students’ linguistic and cultural backgrounds they would validate the language the students had spoken all their lives, creating an environment better equipped for learning Standard English language skills.

The proposal was met by immediate media backlash. Both African Americans and whites spoke out vehemently against the resolution but their criticism was fundamentally based on the mistaken belief that Ebonics, and not Standard English, would be taught to the students. The problem was that the resolution was written from a linguistic viewpoint and so included vocabulary that was interpreted much differently by the general public. In “Language Ideology and Dialect: Understanding the Oakland Ebonics Controversy,” Walt Wolfram outlines several points made in the Oakland resolution that were significantly misinterpreted by the media and public. These issues notwithstanding, the biggest roadblock in the popular understanding of the Ebonics resolution was the refusal to consider AAVE a language. To most, it was slang and a lesser form of English.

Even after a second resolution changed some wording and the Oakland Unified School District clarified to certain media outlets (as in this transcript from a PBS NewsHour segment) that they would not be “teaching” Ebonics, the backlash and misconceptions about the proposal lingered. Why? And what does race have to do with this?

Around ten years after the Oakland Ebonics controversy, the television station VH1 aired the series “I Love the 90s.” The episode “I Love 1996” includes a segment on the controversy. During this two-minute clip, comedians and other entertainers comment on the Oakland School Board’s resolution and Ebonics in general. Godfrey asks why there was no conflict over “white Ebonics,” a joke that equates Ebonics with slang. Alfonso Ribeiro calls Ebonics the “dumbest idea ever” (it is unclear whether he is referring to the resolution or the very existence of Ebonics) and the tone of all of the commentators tends toward bemused incredulity. It is apparent that they think the resolution was ridiculous.

While Michael Ian Black references the notion that there is a structure to Ebonics, on the whole, there is little recognition of Ebonics’ linguistic traits. Though the etymology of the word “Ebonics” is discussed, the roots of the language are not, and more importantly, the reasons for the proposal to include Ebonics in Oakland schools is not mentioned at all. Ten years after the Oakland School Board attempted to validate the speech of 52 percent of the district’s students, it is still seen as slang, a bastardized form of English and even “dumb.” Can these perceptions of a language spoken by many for centuries stand apart from perceptions of the race that speaks it? In other words, is Ebonics lesser because of the social position of the group of people the language belongs to?

In the VH1 clip, Godfrey touches on this question when he asks about hypothetical controversy over “white Ebonics.” Although he fails to recognize that Ebonics is more than just English slang, he does hint at the idea that if it were a linguistic phenomenon belonging to white people, the reaction might have been different. Ebonics, like the group that speaks it, is marginalized. It is looked down upon by whites because it is viewed as an unintelligent form of expression. In “I ‘on Know why They be Trippin,” Theresa Perry says that “most teachers have little, if any, accurate knowledge about Black Language, and are likely to harbor negative attitudes about the language and its speakers, primarily because of their socio-political location.” These attitudes can extend to the wider white, anti-Ebonics population. 

The African American population spoke out against the resolution because they, as a race, did not want to be perceived negatively by the larger white society, a fear mentioned in the text of the “I Has a Dream” ad that ran in the New York Times in 1996 with the authors’ assertions that “White America couldn’t care less what we do to segregate ourselves” and “language is power.” The supporters of this ad believe that whites see Ebonics as a separate and  inferior language and because of this, perhaps, it has no power.

What is considered incorrect speech by many becomes the fodder for jokes as seen above and in Zach Galifianakis’s opening monologue on Saturday Night Live from March of this year. In it (at about 1:57 in the clip below), he says that he wears “Axe” body spray but lives in a predominantly African American neighborhood where it is more commonly known as “Ask.” He follows the laughs with “If you don’t get that joke then you are not racist.” Of course he is not completely serious about this last part of the joke but his mention of racism is telling nonetheless. By accusing those who get the joke of racism Galifianakis is asserting that if you notice the difference between certain African American speech and Standard English you may be racist. There is an assumption that noticing a difference is equivalent to presuming African American speech’s inferiority. In 1996 it was this presumed inferiority that fueled media backlash. 

Though the 1996 Oakland Unified School District’s Ebonics resolution clearly stated and explained the legitimacy of Ebonics, this is not what caught the media’s attention. Instead, the language was viewed as illegitimate and inferior. Race is tied inextricably to the perceptions of Ebonics and the resolution. How an affirmation of Ebonics in Oakland would reflect on African Americans as a whole was a primary concern of African Americans and white people alike. If African Americans were removed from worry about where they stand in relation to the rest of society, the controversy over including Ebonics in schools might not have occurred. Or at least, the public would have been able to focus some on the possible benefits of such an initiative as opposed to focusing solely on what many saw as inevitable downfalls. Because of African Americans’ historic disadvantages, the public saw Ebonics as a burden to escape from, not as a language with a richness and legitimacy all its own. 

I Can Haz English?

“It is not the English language that hurt me, but what the oppressors do with it, how they shape it to become a territory that limits and defines, how they make it a weapon that can shame, humiliate, colonize.” (Macedo, 23) Bell hooks was speaking about the English language in the context of American oppression over African Americans, but these words are so timeless – the statement could be applicable to one of the many marginalized and oppressed groups that have faced hatred and scorn in America.

Language has is a powerful tool of oppression and marginalization; America is no exception to this model. Anglo Americans have used the English language as a powerful tool to assert their dominance to remain the dominant group in America. After 1675, the Anglo American had established themselves as the “native” group along the Atlantic coast, from Massachusetts to Virginia, through sheer force of violence against the Native American peoples who had previously inhabited the space. Anglo Americans where white and most importantly, English speaking. Throughout history there have been three great immigrant streams; each one was correlated with a strong xenophobic reaction on the part of the “native” white Americans.

The First Great Immigrant Stream from 1820 to 1889 was comprised mostly with people form Ireland, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Both the Irish and the German immigrants were seen as barbaric peoples due to their religion or their language. Indeed, most German immigrants who settled in America during this time never aspired to assimilate into American society; they never learned English, and many schools, businesses, and other public services were set up by these immigrants and conducted solely in German. Depicted below are some anti-German and anti-Irish cartoons that were published around the time of their arrival and settlement into America. 

 

The first cartoon shows an Irishman and a German man dressed up as a Irish Whiskey barrel and a Lager Bier barrel, respectively – they are the likely cause of the commotion in the background and both groups are portrayed as drunks.

The second cartoon shows two Irishman depicted as a monkeys, buying and selling handguns – with no regard for themselves. The caption reads “Yong Ireland in Business for Himself.” The two men are depicted as very violent and reckless individuals.

The third cartoon is a picture of a ruthless and murderous Irish monster; the caption, a quote from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, reads “The Baneful and blood-stained monster…yet was it not my Master to the very extent that it was my Creature…Had I not breathed into my own spirit?”

The Second Great Immigrant Stream from 1890 to 1924 was dominated by people from southern and eastern Europe, Austrians, Italians, Russians, Geeks, Slovaks, etc. This group was seen as even more foreign than those from the First Great Immigrant Stream; they looked different and spoke languages that were incredibly alien to English. They were seen as criminals, leeches of society, and were considered to be completely foreign from “native” Americans.

Here is a political cartoon about the Anti-Italian immigration sentiment during this time period.    

The captions read: REGARDING THE ITALIAN POPULATION “A Nuisance to Pedestrians.” “Their Sleeping Arrangements.” “Afternoon’s Pleasant Diversions.” “The Way to Dispose of Them.” “The Way to Arrest Them.” The Italians are made out to be disorderly and uncivilized individuals – the only way to get rid of them is to drown them like rats!

Now we are in the midst of the Third Great Immigrant Stream that started in 1946 with immigrants from Asia and Latin America predominating. Again “native” Americans feel that their place is threatened. They are taking our jobs, they are using tax payer dollars, they are leeches on the system, they are dragging down the American economy, etc. The propaganda goes on and on. Here is an anti-Mexican cartoon, showing two Mexican immigrants running back across the border to evade paying taxes.

The man in the “Show Me the $” shirt is saying: “But…There’s a new law coming soon!...We’ll be able to stay LEGALLY! Why are we running away?”

We have built a wall across the US-Mexico border to keep immigrants out of our borders, we have placed limits on the types of immigrants that are allowed through our borders, and now, once again, there has been a movement towards the use of English only in all government operations. There have been various incarnations of the English only movement in America – from the abolishment of French language rights after the Civil War, the instruction of Native American children in English only boarding schools, the establishment of English as the language of instruction in Puerto Rico, etc. Now states nationwide are considering making English their official language, marginalizing the immigrants who came to America for freedom and prosperity with a single stroke of a pen.

Here is a clip about the recent debate in Oklahoma to make English the state’s official language: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT7mUpefbOo (Unfortunately, this clip is unembeddable) Please note in the news clip the stock image that flies up is an American Flag crossed with a Mexican flag, along with some thunderous and ominous music. Yet during the entire clip there is no mention of Mexicans or the Spanish language – all those opposed to the movement who are interviewed are Cherokees – the most native of the native Americans – not the English, Dutch, French and Spanish who came over hundreds of years after the Cherokees had established their own civilization. The Cherokee language, among many other Native American Languages were stamped out and taken from the people, stripped away from children in government boarding schools, pronounced worthless for gaining success and dangerous for assimilation in America.

Now once again, we are embedded in a debate about what makes a true American. Is it the language they speak? Is it the color of their skin? Is it the food they eat? For centuries, lawmakers and the lobbyists behind them have tried to define who is and isn’t worthy of citizenship, most especially the rights and protections that citizenship provides. Declaring English as an official language rails against the embedded ideology of America as a nation of immigrants who escaped oppression in their home countries to find freedom, both economic and political, within our borders. Declaring English as the official language is effectively communicating to immigrants that they are not welcome here and are not worth the government’s and thus the American people’s time.

- Holley Davis

Debunking the Myths

 by Tamara Whitehouse

This week, I was struck by how many folk assumptions about language arise in the English-only debates.  For this entry, I would like to focus on two assumptions that caught my attention the most.

In this video, we hear several questionable assumptions about language from Kaufman.  For instance, she states at one point that due to the current wave of Hispanic immigration, the nation is becoming “an America that doesn’t look anything like the America the forefathers set up.”  This statement is questionable for many reasons, not least of which the fact that merely having a different racial composition than what existed 200 years ago is not automatically a negative- and it’s interesting that she would think it is.  It also begs the question of what exactly she means by ‘looks like;’ does she only mean that literally, as in racial categories?  Alternatively, does she believe she is talking only about the languages spoken (although as we have explored in class, that would be closely tied to race as well)?  If it is the latter, one has to wonder how it would be possible for modern America to not ‘look’ different than it did 200 years ago.

However, the assumption I really want to focus on is one that comes in at the end of the video, during a heated exchange between her and a more pro-bilingual guest.  The guest, representing Hispanic immigrants, states “we want to be a part of this country,” before being interrupted by Kaufman, who shouts “then speak English, it’s not that complicated!”  This is a damaging assumption which is echoed by anti-bilingual propaganda produced by pro-Proposition O campaigners quoted in Woolard’s article.  One of the recurring themes in such propaganda is the theme of “unfairness;” this is described by Woolard as the concept that past immigrants “felt it a duty and a privilege to learn English,” (Woolard, 272).

That statement implies that the concept is in direct contrast to ‘today’s’ immigrants, who must not find it as much of a “duty and a privilege.”  ‘Today’s’ immigrants, it is assumed, are perhaps less motivated, are lazier, dumber, or are apathetic toward learning English.  Furthermore, this moral judgment is made even worse because it is labeled as being “unfair.”  Unfair to whom?  To those poor, hardworking immigrants of the past who ‘actually’ learned English and assimilated, and are now somehow being slapped in the face by these lazy newcomers.   It’s ‘not fair’ that they had to learn English while modern immigrants ‘don’t.’  Of course, this reasoning is completely faulty, but it sounds nice so it gets airtime.  As noted in class on Monday, public English education classes are regularly overbooked, and modern immigrants are actually learning English at the same pace as any other major wave of immigrants in the past. 

Another folk assumption mentioned in Woolard’s article is that someone’s inability to read or write English implies that they cannot understand or produce spoken English (Woolard, 272).  This, too, is faulty.  My own personal experience shows that the correlation between literacy and language ability is minimal; for instance, I have a much higher written proficiency in Spanish than I do spoken.  When I write Spanish, I write like a second grader, but when I speak Spanish, I probably sound like a toddler.  This shows that the two forms of fluency can be separate and should be judged separately.  Another example can be seen in friends I had in high school, who told me that even though they were raised speaking Spanish at home, they didn’t feel confident in their written abilities.  They were fluent in conversation, but remedial in writing and reading.  If a Spanish speaker can be fluent in spoken word but lacking in literacy, there’s no reason why an English speaker can’t have the same issues- and there’s no reason why someone’s inability to read must mean they cannot understand the language at all.

Further evidence of this, that surpasses the anecdotal, can be seen in this video:

The speaker in the video is addressing adults who cannot read.  He is speaking slowly and clearly, but is using fluent English and is assuming that those listening know enough English to understand him.  In other words, those listening to his video can understand spoken English, despite any inability to read English.

Similarly:

This video shows a man speaking about his experiences before he learned how to read.  He mentions in the beginning that his daughter asked him to read a book to her, and he could not.  It is obvious, however, that he understood her spoken question; his inability to read English did not impair his ability to understand English.

These two videos show that illiteracy cannot be taken as irrefutable evidence that the person does not understand English.  Therefore, just because a Hispanic voter might want to use a bilingual ballot, it does not necessarily mean that they are uninformed- or even that they relied on translated information.  They may very well have usable English skills that just haven’t yet transferred to reading.  A Spanish ballot cannot be taken as a sign that the voter has an inability to understand English; it can only show that the voter is more comfortable with written Spanish than with written English. 

This folk assumption, that illiteracy equals complete incomprehension, is damaging because it paints illiterate immigrants as being variously uneducated, uninformed, misinformed, and liable to manipulation.  This makes them undesirable voters, and could cause those of opposing parties to dismiss their votes as somehow less valid due to their ‘uninformed’ or ‘coerced’ nature.  This misperception also provides more backing to the fight to have voting ballots be English-only.

Commercialization of Covert Racism

By Lizzy Mirisola

In her essay, Covert Racist Discourse: Metaphors, Mocking and the Racialization of Historically Spanish Speaking Populations in the United States, Jane Hill explores the use of “mock Spanish” as a means of discrimination within American society. Mock Spanish, Hill argues, is most often utilized by native English speakers, and can result in subtle yet perfectly effective perpetuation of racist and/or stereotypical ideas associated with a certain set of language speakers, in this case Spanish speakers. A strong example of this, which Hill cites early on in her work, is the “Consider it Mañana” (CIM) phrase, in which mañana is unnecessarily substituted for the English “tomorrow” (120). The use of this command suggests that the listener procrastinate and act lazy and the use of Spanish to reinforce this point infers that Spanish speakers innately possess such characteristics (120). As a result, Spanish speakers serve as a model for the laziness being instructed by the quip. In this example, racism is evidently in play though it may be difficult to detect because implied meanings often go under the radar of consciousness. Consequently, as opposed to the evidently discriminatory tone of a statement such as, “Spanish speakers are lazy” which most people would pick up on right away, the racist implications of a phrase like CIM become subconsciously ingrained in speakers and listeners of mock Spanish alike, perhaps without them even realizing what’s occurring.

What I find particularly harmful and concerning about the use of mock Spanish and other forms of covert racism is that these processes can be employed (often times unknowingly) by people who consider themselves opposed to discriminatory discourse and practices. This propensity to unintentionally utilize covert racism suggests that discrimination is still highly ingrained in American society at large, a discomforting yet concrete fact. This situation is particularly evident in the media, a source that has often been charged with perpetuating certain stereotypes and excluding particular demographics. Hill cites the famous Terminator II line, “hasta la vista, baby” as an example of mock Spanish in the media. According to Hill, the use of the phrase equates Spanish speakers with recklessness and havoc-causing violence, as Arnold Schwarzenegger says it immediately before open firing a machine gun at his enemy (120).

Covert racism in the media is not limited to films; it is also present in other mediums including music. Earlier this semester, when I first heard the track, “Dark Fantasy” on Kanye West’s most recent album, I was struck by one line in particular. In the first verse, West raps,

“I fantasized 'bout this back in Chicago
Mercy, mercy me, that Murcielago
That's me, the first year that I blow
How you say broke in Spanish? Me no hablo” (0:35)

 

As presumably any Spanish speaker would realize, “me no hablo” is grammatically incorrect, and is seemingly Anglicized with the use of “me” in place of “yo” (though if the Spanish “yo” were to be correctly translated into English at all, it would actually be equated to “I” instead of “me”). What I find more interesting than the actual execution of the mock Spanish is the context in which it occurs. In this part of the song, West is reminiscing about his days spent growing up in an impoverished neighborhood in Chicago, yearning for nicer things (like a Lamborghini Murcielago) but unable to gain access to them. He has since been able to have these things that he had once wanted. However, at the time he was “broke,” and for some reason feels the need to translate this particular word into Spanish. This attempted translation suggests that there is some correlation between lack of money, power and influence and the Spanish language, characteristics that can then be reflected onto Spanish speakers. As far as I could find, Kanye West doesn’t speak Spanish, come from Spanish-speaking family or have any personal relationship with the Spanish language that would require him or even justify his desire to translate the word broke into Spanish. Additionally, as mentioned above, the connotations of the word broke make his choice particularly suspect.

Furthermore, because the quote reads “me no hablo” there is a sense of “lack of language” being associated with Spanish speakers. The phrase is written in incorrect, presumably Anglicized Spanish, but is more recognizably Spanish than English based on the syntax and sentence structure. Consequently, the Spanish language is trivialized and Spanish speakers are portrayed as not fully having any language at all, being English deficient and not entirely Spanish proficient either.

West continues to dig himself deeper into this hole in his next set of lyrics, which read,

“Me drown sorrow in that Diablo
Me found bravery in my bravado” (0:47)

He proceeds with the mock Spanish sentence structure employed in the “me no hablo” example by replacing “I” with “me.” In addition, instead of using the conventional English “devil” or “demon” to describe what is presumably the anti-Christ, West decides it would be more appropriate to use the Spanish “Diablo.” Again, his motives are unclear though the effects of his lexical and grammatical choices are apparent. Perhaps one of the most negative concepts one could reference is translated into Spanish within an (almost) entirely English language song; listeners left to their own devices may subconciously equate Spanish language with something overtly negative and as a result, map similar characteristics onto those who speak the language.

Kanye West is not the type to target simply one group of language speakers though. He’s far more egalitarian than that. In another of his songs “Power [Remix]” featuring Jay Z and Swizz Beatz, West raps,

“Now everything I’m rhymin’ on cause a Ramadan
Been a don, prayin’ for the families lost in the storm
Bring our troops back from Iraq, keep our troops out of Iran
So the next couple bars, I’ma drop them in Islam
They say assalamu alaikum, say wa alaikum asalaam” (2:51)



I found this excerpt interesting when I first heard it because I had never realized one could rap in a religion! After doing some research, I reaffirmed my original guess: that West was conflating Islam with Arabic, a language spoken by Muslims, Jews, Christians and followers of other religions as well. As a result, West essentially is claiming that all Arabic speakers are Muslim. In addition, he states in the first line of the passage that the following lines about the unrest in the Middle East and subsequent United States interference is “cause a Ramadan.” Here, he seems to confuse followers of an entire religion with a small sect of religious extremists who seek to cause harm to others. In total, if we follow West’s logic carefully, which demonstrates that all Arabic speakers are Muslims and all Muslims are homicidal terrorists, we find that by extension, all Arabic speakers must be homicidal terrorists. I think many people would seek to disagree with this assessment, myself being one of them.

This mapping of certain, highly negative stereotypes onto a vast and heterogeneous language group is chilling, discriminatory and quite honestly awful. And perhaps the most disturbing part is the lack of public outcry against the two examples mentioned above. I spent some time searching for reactions to what seems to be overtly bigoted rhetoric and came up with nothing, except one quote in reference to the example from “Power [Remix]” that claimed “Actually, the language is Arabic, but whatever: you get the point.” I think this lack of response clearly demonstrates that covert racism can be interpreted subconsciously and consequently may be accepted without being noticed or questioned. Here lies the potential harmfulness of the issue Hill describes. Discriminatory practices are destructive enough when people knowingly employ them. However, when habits develop within society that perpetuate negative stereotypes and people don’t even notice the cycle, the damage is presumably worse. This leads to racist ideas becoming natural to and ingrained in society at large, while many people assume we are moving in a post-racial direction and don’t seek to fix the problems that exist.