Affirming Language Diversity in Schools and Society

Beyond Linguistic Apartheid

Pierre Orelus

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781135941970
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Bildung
• Subtopic: Bildungstheorie & -praxis

Language is perhaps the most common issue that surfaces in debates over school reform, and plays a vital role in virtually everything we are involved. This edited volume explores linguistic apartheid, or the disappearance of certain languages through cultural genocide by dominant European colonizers and American neoconservative groups. These groups have historically imposed hegemonic languages, such as English and French, on colonized people at the expense of the native languages of the latter. The book traces this form of apartheid from the colonial era to the English-only movement in the United States, and proposes alternative ways to counter linguistic apartheid that minority groups and students have faced in schools and society at large.

Contributors to this volume provide a historical overview of the way many languages labeled as inferior, minority, or simply savage have been attacked and pushed to the margins, discriminating against and attempting to silence the voice of those who spoke and continue to speak these languages. Further, they demonstrate the way and the extent to which such actions have affected the cultural life, learning process, identity, and the subjective and material conditions of linguistically and historically marginalized groups, including students.

1	Introduction
	Linguistic Apartheid No Más—Honoring all Languages
	Pierre Wilbert Orelus

Language is perhaps the most common issue that often surfaces in debates revolving around school reforms, human rights, and human relations and development, as well as the history of colonialism, among other things. It plays a vital role in virtually everything we are involved in. Besides shaping our identity and being a medium thereby we remain connected to our community and express our views of the world, language has historically been utilized as a tool of domination and conquest (Phillipson, 1992, 2010; Macedo, 1994; Macedo et al., 2003; Skutnabb-Kangas, 2010; Thiong’o, 1986). Hence, it is not surprising that the politics of language has been at the center of the scholarly work of many linguists, sociolinguists, critical theorists, and educators (Canagarajah, 1999; Darder, 1991; Fairclough, 1989, 1995, 2003; Gee, 2011; Macedo et al., 2003; Orelus, 2007, 2010; Pennycook, 1998, 2007; Phillipson, 1992, 2010; Schleppegrell, 2004; Skutnabb-Kangas, 2010).

Informed by the scholarly work of those who have looked at language issues from a historical, political, and postcolonial perspective (Canagarajah, 1999; Fairclough, 2003; Fanon, 1963; Macedo et al., 2003; Pennycook, 1998, 2007; Orelus, 2007; Phillipson, 2010; Thiong’o, 1986), this book examines linguistic apartheid that occurred during the colonial era and continues to happen, for example, in the United States with the English Only movement. By linguistic apartheid, it is meant the subjugation of certain languages by dominant European and American groups who have, throughout history, tried to impose hegemonic languages, such as English, French, and Portuguese, on colonized and marginalized groups at the expense of the native languages of these groups. To illuminate how this form of apartheid has occurred, this book begins by providing a historical overview of the way many languages labeled as inferior have been attacked and pushed to the margins, discriminating against and attempting to silence the voice of those who spoke and continue to speak them. It goes on to analyze the effect such actions have had on the culture, the identity, the learning process, and the subjective and material conditions of linguistically and historically marginalized groups. The book ends by proposing alternative ways to counter the linguistic apartheid minority groups, including bilingual students and English-language learners (ELLs), have faced in schools and in society at large.

Examining Linguistic Apartheid through Anticolonial and Anti-Imperialist Lenses

Historically, a multitude of languages labeled as minority languages spoken in the world have been attacked and relegated to an inferior status through the mechanism of colonization, slavery, and the English Only movement in the United States (Macedo et al., 2003; Pennycook, 2007; Phillipson, 2010; Orelus, 2007; Thiong’o, 1986). Consequently, people who by accident of birth happen to speak these languages have been marginalized, oppressed, and discriminated against in schools and society at large (Cummins, 2000; Macedo et al., 2003; Orelus, 2007; Phillipson, 2010). For example, in the United States, Native American children, forcibly placed in reservations, were often reprimanded in government schools for speaking their native languages, perceived by their teachers as “uncivilized” (Churchill, 2004; Crawford, 1991; Grande, 2004; Spring, 2009). Likewise, Aboriginal children in Australia were compulsorily taken from their families and placed in boarding schools, where they were prohibited from speaking their native tongue, and their names were changed to Anglo names (Smith, 1999).

In South America, particularly in Peru, the Spaniards attempted unsuccessfully to completely wipe out the native language of the Andeans, Quechua (Pratt, 1991). Texts written in Quechua by the Indigenous Andeans took centuries before they were finally allowed to be published. A 1,200-page letter written by an Indigenous Andean, Felipe Guaman de Ayala, is a case in point. Written in 1613 and found by a Peruvian, Richard Pietschmann, his letter was not made available to the general public until 1912 (Pratt, 1991). Pratt maintains, “Quechua was not thought of as a written language in 1908, nor Andean culture as a literate culture” (p. 584).

Similarly, in his seminal book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Walter Rodney (1972) documented the way and the extent to which European colonizers imposed their languages on African children in order to maintain their linguistic, political, and socioeconomic domination. According to Rodney, to achieve this goal, the European colonizers hired colonial submissive teachers to teach African students in kindergarten and primary schools European culture and history. Through this colonial form of schooling, African students were taught to value and embrace the language and culture of their colonizers at the expense of theirs. Rodney stated:

Schools of kindergarten and primary level for Africans in Portuguese colonies were nothing but agencies for the spread of the Portuguese language. Most schools were controlled by the Catholic Church, as a reflection of the unity of church and state in fascist Portugal. In the little-known Spanish colony of Guinea (Rio Muni), the small amount of education given to Africans was based on eliminating the use of local languages by the pupils and on instilling in their hearts the holy fear of God. (p. 249)

Through this colonial form of education, African students were taught to simply become ignorant of their own languages, cultures, histories, and geographies, which, according to Rodney, these colonial teachers never talked about in class. Whereas these students learned in school about the “Alps and the river Rhine,” they were denied vital information about the “Atlas Mountains of North Africa or the river Zambezi” (Rodney, 1972, p. 247). Rodney further argued that as early as in kindergarten, the colonized African students knew more about Napoleon Bonaparte, who reestablished slavery in Guadeloupe and attempted unsuccessfully to do the same in Haiti, than their own ancestors. This form of oppression Indigenous and colonized people suffered and have continued to endure have impacted them linguistically, culturally, educationally, and psychologically (Smith, 1999; Wane, 2006). As Wane (2006) observed:

The use of a foreign language as a medium of education makes a child foreign within her or his own culture, environment, etc. This creates a colonial alienation. What is worse, the neocolonized subject is made to see the world and where she or he stands in it as seen, and defined by or reflected in the culture of the language of imposition. This is made worse when the neocolonized subject is exposed to images of her or his world mirrored in the written language of her or his colonizer, where the natives’ language, cultures, history, or people are associated with low status, slow intelligence, and barbarism. (p. 100)

What can be inferred from what Rodney argued above is that the goal of the European colonizers was to ensure that the colonized African students did not have a good command of their languages or a sound understanding of their cultures and histories. They were forced to learn French, Portuguese, and English languages and cultures, so that they could quickly assimilate into the European culture. Consequently, many may have grown to appreciate European languages and culture more than theirs or, worse yet, they may have made to believe that their language and culture were barbarous and worthless.

In his book, Deculturalization and the Struggle for Equality, Joel Spring (2009) maintains that through schooling Indigenous students were taught that their language, culture, and Indigenous knowledge were inferior, barbarous, and uncivilized, and therefore worthless in comparison to the European-based culture and knowledge they received in schools. Likewise, in Linguistic Imperialism Continued, Robert Phillipson (2010) astutely documents how European countries, particularly the UK and the United States, have continued to impose English on the world as the lingua franca, that is, the language that people around the globe should use to communicate —be it for personal, professional, or business purposes—and study at the expense of Indigenous and native languages of billions of people, including bilingual students. Phillipson warns us, “When analyzing English Worldwide the crux of the matter is whose interests English serves, and whose interests scholarship on English serves” (2010, p. 27).

The linguistic and cultural oppression that Native American children in the United States, Aboriginal children in Australia, the Tainos in the Caribbean, colonized Africans, and other marginalized groups experienced and continue to experience can be best described by what Paulo Freire (1970) called “cultural invasion,” which, according to him, occurs:

When the invaders penetrate the cultural context of another group, in disrespect of the latter’s potentialities; they impose their own view of the world upon those they invade and inhibit the creativity of the invaded by curbing their expression. Whether urbane or harsh, cultural invasion is thus always an act of violence against the persons of the invaded culture, who lose their originality or face the threat of losing it. In cultural invasion (as in all the modalities of antidialogical action) the invaders are the authors of, and actors in, the process; those they invade are the objects. The invaders mold; those they invade are molded. The invaders choose; those they invade follow that choice-or are expected to follow it. The invaders act; those they invade have only the illusion of acting, through the action of the invaders. (p. 133)

Gandhi (1997), Nyerere (1968), and Thiong’o (1986), among many others, understood the educational implications of the cultural invasion eloquently articulated by Freire. Throughout their political and academic careers, they resisted colonial linguistic and cultural influences on the school system of their countries, India, Tanzania, and Kenya, respectively. For example, Gandhi advocated and fought for an educational system that met the linguistic needs and reflected the cultural traditions, beliefs, and aspirations of the Indian people. Although Gandhi did not object to the idea that students should learn the English language, he argued that it should not be done at the expense of Indian Indigenous language(s), which need to be valued and instituted in schools. Gandhi (1997) was disheartened by and therefore spoke against the dominance of English through public and private institutions in the Indian society. He asked:

Is it not a sad commentary that we should have to speak of Home Rule in a foreign language? Is it not a sad thing that, if I want to go to a court of justice, I must employ the English language as a medium; that when I become a barrister, I may not speak my mother-tongue, and that someone else should have to translate to me from my language? Is it not absurd? (Gandhi, as cited in Parel, 2009, pp. 103–104)

Gandhi’s argument illustrates a very important point, that is, one’s native language should not ever be sacrificed regardless of the circumstances, for it is through that language one can better learn in school and express one’s aspirations and view of the world. Simply stated, one’s native language is the language through which one can truly feel at ease in the world. Unfortunately, linguistic apartheid stemming from European and American linguistic domination has led to the marginalization of many languages and people around the world.

Similarly, Nyerere (1968) and Thiong’o (1986) challenged the educational systems in Tanzania and Kenya designed to prepare students to continue to serve the interest of the British colonizers. They both advocated for an educational system that would value and embrace the native local languages and culture of Tanzanians and Kenyans and prepare them to serve the interest of their country. Nyerere stated, “The education provided by Tanzania for the students of Tanzania must serve the purposes of Tanzania. It must encourage the growth of the socialist values we aspire to” (1968, p. 32). Similarly, Thiong’o, who was jailed and beaten for daring to speak against British colonialism that negated local languages and cultural practices of Kenyan students and families, maintained:

In schools and universities our Kenyan languages—that is, the languages of the many nationalities which make up Kenya—were associated with negative qualities of backwardness, underdevelopment, humiliation and punishment. We who went through that school system were meant to graduate with a hatred of the people and the culture and the values of the language of our daily humiliation and punishment. I do not want to see Kenyan children growing up in that imperialist imposed tradition of contempt for the tools of communication developed by their communities and their history. I want them to transcend colonial alienation. (1986, p. 28)

What Thiong’o describes above is still happening to people in the Caribbean, in Africa, and in Latin America whose countries are officially independent but continue to experience a renewed form of linguistic, educational, socioeconomic, and political colonialism. For instance, in the formerly French colonized country, Haiti, people are still under the subjugation of French hegemony (Orelus, 2007). The educated upper-middle-class Haitians, especially those who were educated in France, Canada, or Belgium, take pride in only speaking French to interact with friends, family, and colleagues. Those who use Creole to communicate their thoughts, aspirations, and feelings in the public sphere are sometimes regarded as uneducated and looked down upon (Orelus, 2007).

In Black Skin White Masks, Fanon (1967) used the example of middle class people in his native Martinique to illustrate a similar form of linguistic colonial practice. Fanon stated:

The middle class in the Antilles never speak Creole except to their servants. In school the children of Martinique are taught to scorn the dialect. One avoids Creolisms. Some families completely forbid the use of Creole, and mothers ridicule their children for speaking it. (p. 20)

The colonial practices described above are not occurring only in Caribbean countries. They have been recurring in Western school systems and societies, including the U.S. school system and society, especially with the English Only movement, to which I turn next.

The English Only Movement: A Neocolonial form of Linguistic Domination

Despite the widespread rhetoric that the United States is a melting pot, a multilingual and a democratic country, languages labeled as minority have been attacked, stigmatized, and relegated to an inferior position (Crawford, 2008; Cummins, 2000; Macedo et al., 2003). Proponents of the English Only movement have wanted minority groups to embrace and speak only English at the expense of their native tongues. Consequently, students who have used their human agency to resist this form of linguistic domination by sticking to their cultural heritage and mother tongue in various settings, such as in school and at work, have been severely castigated. In a study Villegas (1988) conducted with Latino students, she reported that some white middle-class teachers prohibited Latino students from speaking Spanish in class. Villegas stated that these teachers felt that speaking Spanish in school was a way of persisting in being foreign. She went on to say that, although 90% of the students were U.S. citizens, their teachers treated them as outsiders because they persisted in speaking Spanish.

Gloria Anzaldua’s (1990) ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Tables
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Introduction: Linguistic Apartheid No Más—Honoring All Languages
• Part I: Linguistic Apartheid in the United States: From the Colonial to the Neocolonial Era
• Part II: Beyond Draconian Language Policies: Affirming Language Diversity
• Part III: In Defense of Language Rights of Minorities: Beyond English Hegemony
• Contributors
• Index