Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T20:25:54.537Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘Converse racialization’ and ‘un/marking’ language: The making of a bilingual university in a neoliberal world

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2020

Mike Mena Open the ORCID record for Mike Mena [Opens in a new window]  and
Ofelia García
Mike Mena*
Affiliation:
The Graduate Center, The City University of New York, USA
Ofelia García
Affiliation:
The Graduate Center, The City University of New York, USA
*
Address for correspondence: Mike Mena, Doctoral Student, Department of Linguistic Anthropology, The Graduate Center, The City University of New York, 365 Fifth Avenue New York, NY10016, USA[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The discourse on the opening of a bilingual university along the Texas-Mexico border leads us to propose a theory of ‘converse racialization’ through which the local Spanish is being progressively ‘unmarked’ and disassociated from the language practice of Mexican Americans. Converse racialization, as the equal and opposite co-constituting underside of racialization, shifts the directionality of semiotic indexes away from a particular ‘race’ or ‘ethnicity’ (including whiteness) and produces an apparent state of ‘unmarkedness’. We argue that the process of ‘unmarking’ Spanish has social, economic, and racializing consequences. Specifically, the language-as-resource discourse obscures and rearticulates the ‘deficiency perspective’ that continues to perpetuate structural inequalities that Latinxs in the border face. (Racialization, higher education, critical race theory, bilingualism, neoliberalism)*

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 50 , Issue 3 , June 2021 , pp. 343 - 364
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

This article benefited greatly from critiques and conversations with Anna Kushner, Ricardo Otheguy, and Angela Reyes. We also recognize the crucial and insightful feedback from Judith Irvine and the anonymous reviewer.

References

Ahmed, Sara (2012). On being included: Racism and diversity in institutional life. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Anzaldúa, Gloria (1987). Borderlands/La Fontera: The new mestiza. San Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute Books.Google Scholar
Anzaldúa, Gloria (2002). (Un)natural bridges, (un)safe spaces. In Anzaldúa, Gloria & Keating, Ana Louise (eds.), This bridge we call home: Radical visions for transformation, 1–5. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bell, Derrick A. Jr. (1980). Brown v. Board of Education and the interest-convergence dilemma. Harvard Law Review 93(3):518–33.Google Scholar
Blanton, Carlos Kevin (2004). The strange career of bilingual education in Texas, 1836–1981. College Station: Texas A&M University Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre (1991). Language and symbolic power. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Carreira, María (2000). Validating and promoting Spanish in the United States: Lessons from linguistic science. Bilingual Research Journal 24(4):423–42.10.1080/15235882.2000.10162776CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De La Trinidad, Maritza; Francisco Guajardo, Peter L. Kranz;, Miguel Guajardo, (2017). The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley: Reframing HSIs through a multi-sited ethnography. Association of Mexican American Educators Journal 11(3):50–83.10.24974/amae.11.3.361CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Delgado Bernal, Dolores (1999). Chicana/o education from the civil rights era to the present. In José F. Moreno (ed.), The elusive quest for equality: 150 years of Chicano/Chicana education, 77–110. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Educational Review.Google Scholar
Duchêne, Alexandre, & Heller, Monica (eds.) (2012). Language in late capitalism: Pride and profit. New York: Routledge.10.4324/9780203155868CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eckert, Penelope (2008). Variation and the indexical field. Journal of Sociolinguistics 12(4):453–76.10.1111/j.1467-9841.2008.00374.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flores, Nelson (2014). Let's not forget that translanguaging is a political act. Online: https://educationallinguist.wordpress.com/2014/07/19/lets-not-forget-that-translanguaging-is-a-political-act/.Google Scholar
Flores, Nelson, & Rosa, Jonathan (2015). Undoing appropriateness: Raciolinguistic ideologies and language diversity in education. Harvard Educational Review 85(2):149–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freire, Juan A.; Valdez;, Verónica E. & Delavan, M. Garrett (2016). The (dis)inclusion of Latina/o interests from Utah's dual language education boom. Journal of Latinos and Education 16(4):276–89.10.1080/15348431.2016.1229617CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flubacher, Mi-Cha, & Del Percio, Alfonso (2017). Language education and neoliberalism. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Gao, Shuang, & Park, Joseph Sung-Yul (2015). Space and language learning under the neoliberal economy. L2 Journal 7(3):78–96.10.5070/L27323514CrossRefGoogle Scholar
García, Ofelia (2009a). Racializing the language practices of U.S. Latinos: Impact on their education. In Cobas, Jose A., Duany, Jorge, & Feagin, Joe R. (eds.), How the United States racializes Latinos: White hegemony and its consequences, 101–15. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
García, Ofelia (2009b). Bilingual education in the 21st century: A global perspective. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
García, Ofelia (2014). U.S. Spanish education: Global and local intersections. Review of Research in Education 38:58–80.Google Scholar
García, Ofelia, & Mason, Leah (2009). Where in the world is U.S. Spanish: Creating a space of opportunity for U.S. Latinos. In Harbert, Wayne, McConnel-Ginet, Sally, Miller, Amanda, & Whitman, John (eds.), Language and poverty, 78–101. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
García, Ofelia, & Wei, Li (2014). Translanguaging: Language, bilingualism and education. London: Palgrave Macmillan.10.1057/9781137385765CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gershon, Ilana (2011). Neoliberal agency. Current Anthropology 52(4):537–55.10.1086/660866CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gershon, Ilana (2016). ‘I'm not a businessman, I'm a business, man’: Typing the neoliberal self into a branded existence. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 6(3):223–46.10.14318/hau6.3.017CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giroux, Henry A. (2002). Neoliberalism, corporate culture, and the promise of higher education: The university as a democratic public sphere. Harvard Educational Review 74(4):425–63.10.17763/haer.72.4.0515nr62324n71p1CrossRefGoogle Scholar
González, Gilbert G. (1990/2013). Chicano education in the era of segregation. Denton: University of North Texas.Google Scholar
González, Gilbert G. (1999). Segregation and the education of Mexican children, 1900–1940. In Moreno, José F. (ed.), The elusive quest for equality: 150 years of Chicano/Chicana education, 53–76. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Educational Review.Google Scholar
Guajardo, Francisco (2007). Teacher, researcher, and agent for community change: A south Texas high school experience. Journal for Global Initiatives 2(1):26–42.Google Scholar
Guajardo, Miguel A., & Guajardo, Francisco J. (2004). The impact of Brown on the brown of south Texas: A micropolitical perspective on the education of Mexican Americans in a south Texas community. American Educational Research Journal 41(3):501–26.10.3102/00028312041003501CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guajardo, Miguel A., & Guajardo, Francisco J. (2017). La universidad de la vida: A pedagogy built to last. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 30(1):6–21.10.1080/09518398.2016.1242805CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harvey, David (2005). A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780199283262.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heller, Monica (2003). Globalization, the new economy, and the commodification of language and identity. Journal of Sociolinguistics 7(4):504–25.10.1111/j.1467-9841.2003.00238.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heller, Monica (2010). The commodification of language. Annual Review of Anthropology 39:101–14.10.1146/annurev.anthro.012809.104951CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heller, Monica, & Duchêne, Alexandre (2016). Treating language as an economic resource: Discourse, data and debate. In Coupland, Nikolas (ed.), Sociolinguistics: Theoretical debates, 139–56. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781107449787.007CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, Jane (1998). Language, race and white public space. American Anthropologist 100(3):680–89.10.1525/aa.1998.100.3.680CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Irvine, Judith, & Gal, Susan (2000). Language ideology and linguistic differentiation. In Kroskrity, Paul V. (ed.), Regimes of language and ideologies, 35–83. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press.Google Scholar
Leeman, Jennifer (2004). Racializing language: A history of linguistic ideologies in the US Census. Journal of Language and Politics 3(3):507–34.10.1075/jlp.3.3.08leeCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levidow, Les (2005). Neoliberal agendas for higher education. In Saad-Filho, Alfredo & Johnston, Deborah (eds.), Neoliberalism: A critical reader, 156–62. London: Pluto Press.Google Scholar
Levin, John S. (2005). The business culture of the community college: Students as consumers; students as commodities. New Directions for Higher Education 129:11–26. Online: https://doi.org/10.1002/he.169.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levin, John S. (2006). Faculty work: Tensions between educational and economic values. Journal of Higher Education 77(1):62–88.10.1353/jhe.2006.0004CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lorde, Audre (1979). The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. History is a Weapon. Online: https://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/lordedismantle.html.Google Scholar
Lozano, Rosina (2018). An American language: The history of Spanish in the United States. Oakland: University of California Press.10.1525/california/9780520297067.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Makoni, Sinfree, & Pennycook, Alastair (2007). Disinventing and reconstituting languages. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Martín Rojo, Luisa (2019). The ‘self-made speaker’: The neoliberal governance of speakers. In Martín Rojo & Del Percio, 162–89.Google Scholar
Martín Rojo, Luisa, & Del Percio, Alfonso (2019). Language and neoliberal governmentality. New York: Routledge.10.4324/9780429286711CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Melamed, Jodi (2011). Represent and destroy: Rationalizing violence in the new racial capitalism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.10.5749/minnesota/9780816674244.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Menchaca, Martha (2011). Naturalizing Mexican immigrants: A Texas history. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Mignolo, Walter D. (2000). Local histories/global designs: Coloniality, subaltern knowledges, and border thinking. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Montejano, David (1987). Anglos and Mexicans in the making of Texas, 1836–1986. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Moyer, Melissa G., & Rojo, Luisa Martín (2007). Language, migration and citizenship: New challenges in the regulation of bilingualism. In Heller, Monica (ed.), Bilingualism: A social approach, 183–206. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.Google Scholar
Muñoz, Carlos Jr. (1989/2007). Youth, identity, power: The Chicano movement. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Musanti, Sandra I., & Cavazos, Alyssa G. (2018). ‘Siento que siempre tengo que regresar al inglés’: Embracing a translanguaging stance in a Hispanic-serving institution the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. EuroAmerican Journal of Applied Linguistics and Languages 5(2):44–61.10.21283/2376905X.9.147CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ngai, Mae M. (2004). Impossible subjects: Illegal aliens and the making of modern America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Otheguy, Ricardo (2016). The linguistic competence of second-generation bilinguals: A critique of ‘incomplete acquisition’. In Tortora, Christina, Dikken, Marcel den, Montoya, Ignacio, & O'Neill, Teresa (eds.), Romance linguistics 2013: Selected papers from the 43rd Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), New York, 17–19 April, 2013, 301–20. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/rllt.9.16othCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Otheguy, Ricardo, & Stern, Nancy (2011). On so-called Spanglish. International Journal of Bilingualism 15(1):85–100. Online: https://doi.org/10.1177/1367006910379298.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Patel, Leigh (2015). Desiring diversity and backlash: White property rights in higher education. Urban Review 47(4):657–75.10.1007/s11256-015-0328-7CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Petrovic, John E. (2005). The conservative restoration and neoliberal defenses of bilingual education. Language Policy 4(4):395–416.10.1007/s10993-005-2888-yCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Piller, Ingrid, & Cho, Jinhyun (2013). Neoliberalism as language policy. Language in Society 42(1):23–44.10.1017/S0047404512000887CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reyes, Dayna (2017). UTRGV publishes road map to ensure student success. Rio Grande Guardian, August. Online: https://riograndeguardian.com/utrgv-publishes-road-map-to-ensure-student-success/.Google Scholar
Rosa, Jonathan (2016). Racializing language, regimenting Latinas/os: Chronotope, social tense, and American raciolinguistic futures. Language & Communication 46:106–17.10.1016/j.langcom.2015.10.007CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rumbaut, Rubén G. (2009). Pigments of our imagination: On the racialization and racial identities of ‘Hispanics’ and ‘Latinos’. In Cobas, José A., Duany, Jorge, & Feagin, Joe R. (eds.), How the United States racializes Latinos: White hegemony and its consequences, 15–36. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
San Miguel, Guadalupe Jr. (1987). ‘Let all of them take heed’: Mexican Americans and the campaign for educational equality in Texas, 1910–1981. College Station: Texas A&M University Press.Google Scholar
San Miguel, Guadalupe Jr. (2001). Brown, not White: School integration and the Chicano movement in Houston. College Station: Texas A&M University Press.Google Scholar
Saunders, Daniel B. (2010). Neoliberal ideology and public higher education in the United States. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies 8(1):41–77.Google Scholar
Shumar, Wesley (1997). College for sale: A critique of the commodification of higher education. London: The Falmer Press.Google Scholar
Silverstein, Michael (2003a). Indexical order and the dialectics of sociolinguistic life. Language and Communication 23(3–4):193–229.10.1016/S0271-5309(03)00013-2CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silverstein, Michael (2003b). The whens and wheres – as well as hows – of ethnolinguistic recognition. Public Culture 15(3):531–57.10.1215/08992363-15-3-531CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Slaughter, Sheila, & Rhoades, Gary (2004). Academic capitalism and the new economy: Markets, states, and higher education. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, Steve (2014). Professor: Making UTRGV a truly bilingual university is going to take time. Rio Grande Guardian, May. Online: https://riograndeguardian.com/professor-making-utrgv-a-truly-bilingual-university-is-going-to-take-time/.Google Scholar
Taylor, Steve (2016a). UTRGV aims to become bilingual, bi-cultural, bi-literate institution. Rio Grande Guardian, July. Online: https://riograndeguardian.com/utrgv-aims-to-become-bilingual-bi-cultural-bi-literate-institution/.Google Scholar
Taylor, Steve (2016b). UTRGV seeks Carnegie classification as community engaged institution. Rio Grande Guardian, June. Online: https://riograndeguardian.com/utrgv-seeks-carnegie-classification-as-community-engaged-institution/.Google Scholar
Taylor, Steve (2016c). Guajardo: Institutional courage is there to make UTRGV a fully bilingual institution. Rio Grande Guardian, August. Online: https://riograndeguardian.com/guajardo-institutional-courage-is-there-to-make-utrgv-a-fully-bilingual-institution.Google Scholar
Tuchman, Gaye (2009). Wannabe U: Inside the corporate university. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.10.7208/chicago/9780226815282.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tyx, Daniel Blue (2017). Inside the nation's first bilingual university. Texas Observer, February. Online: https://www.texasobserver.org/first-bilingual-university/.Google Scholar
U.S. Census Bureau (2010). Quick facts: United States. Online: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/TX,US/POP010210.Google Scholar
University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (2017a). Transforming our world: Strategic plan. Online: https://www.utrgv.edu/strategic-plan/_files/documents/pdf/16094_aa_strategic_plan_full_document_proof_4.pdf.Google Scholar
University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (2017b). Transforming our world: Strategic plan overview. Online: https://www.utrgv.edu/strategic-plan/_files/documents/pdf/14216_strategic_plan_booklet_print_file_4.pdf.Google Scholar
Urciuoli, Bonnie (1996). Exposing prejudice: Puerto Rican experiences of language, race, and class. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Urciuoli, Bonnie (2008). Skills and selves in the new workplace. American Ethnologist 35(2):211–28.10.1111/j.1548-1425.2008.00031.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Urciuoli, Bonnie (2016a). Neoliberalizing markedness students: The interpellation of ‘diverse’ college students. Journal of Ethnographic Theory 6(3):201–21.10.14318/hau6.3.016CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Urciuoli, Bonnie (2016b). The compromised pragmatics of diversity. Language and Communication 51:30–39.10.1016/j.langcom.2016.07.005CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Valdés, Guadalupe (1997). Dual-language immersion programs: A cautionary note concerning the education of language-minority students. Harvard Educational Review 67(3):391–429.10.17763/haer.67.3.n5q175qp86120948CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Valencia, Richard R. (2010). Dismantling contemporary deficit thinking: Educational thought and practice. New York: Routledge.10.4324/9780203853214CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Varghese, Manka M., & Park, Caryn (2010). Going global: Can dual-language programs save bilingual education? Journal of Latinos and Education 9(1):72–80.10.1080/15348430903253092CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Villa, Daniel (2000). Languages have armies, and economies, too: The presence of U.S. Spanish in the Spanish-speaking world. Southwest Journal of Linguistics 19(2):143–54.Google Scholar
Villa, Daniel, & Villa, Jennifer R. (2005). Language instrumentality in southern New Mexico: Implication for the loss of Spanish in the Southwest. South 24(1–2):169–84.Google Scholar
Zentella, Ana Celia (2009). Latin@ language and identities. In Orosco, Marcelo Suárez & Páez, Mariela (eds.), Latinos: Remaking America, 2nd edn., 321–38. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Zimmermann, Martina, & Flubacher, Mi-Cha (2017). Win-win?! Language regulation for competitiveness in a university context. In Flubacher & Del Percio, 204–28.10.21832/9781783098699-013CrossRefGoogle Scholar