Zavala effectively demonstrates that while these young people are still in the process of exploring identity, the resolution of their feelings about the Spanish language is a central dimension of the identity development process. The linguicism to which they all had been subjected had been internalized by some and had to be rejected in order for them to assert a positive sense of identity.
While Zavala’s study focused only on Puerto Ricans, a similar pattern was described by Paul, a young Chicano, reflecting on his early adolescence:
When I was in middle school me and my sister we were the only Latinos in the whole school. You know, all my friends were White just because I assimilated myself with White folks because I had moved out of my neighborhood and into a White neighborhood. You know I wanted to be like them. I started to lose my Spanish.… I really wanted to change my name, I just didn’t want to be Mexican. You know, so my middle school years I really had a hard time because I wanted to assimilate my whole life to like White culture. But then as soon as I hit high school that changed cause there were so many Latinos, and so then I wanted to be more Chicano than ever. I lost my self-identity during my middle school.50
Vasti Torres in her qualitative study of Latinx college students, extending over a two-year period, heard similar sentiments echoed by Elizabeth, a young Cuban American whose exploration of ethnic identity was integrally connected with reclaiming her Spanish. In her first year, she felt “like an outsider” among other Latinx students because she no longer spoke fluent Spanish. Yet by her second year, she had become eager to change that.
I was in a class this past semester with a professor.… And there are a lot, like tons, of Hispanic kids in that class. And my last name is [common Spanish surname], so everyone looks at me, even at [the food court on campus], the people that work there will speak Spanish to me, and I’m just like, I can understand them but I can’t really speak back.… So, in that class, I just really felt Whiter than White, like more American than ever, and they would stay afterwards with the professor and speak Spanish and… oh, I just hurt. I really want to be able to do that and that’s like a really big deal why I am studying [abroad] the entire year, because my Spanish is horrendous and… I want to be fluent by the time I get back. I want to be able to read in Spanish, write in Spanish, and be good at it. And it’s been really hard because the Hispanic kids don’t look at me as very Hispanic. But the White kids or the American kids, [with] their racism issue, they’ll look at me and they’ll hear me sing a Spanish song or listen to Spanish music… or I want to eat Spanish food and they look at me like, “oh God, she is so Spanish,” you know, and I am not.… It’s hard.51
The racism of the White students and the discomfort with Spanish-speaking Latinx students left her in a lonely spot. Affirming her identity through her reengagement with Spanish as well as taking courses on Latin America is consistent with the phase of active exploration Phinney describes. Elizabeth elaborated on her identity quest:
My quest or journey to learn Spanish is a really big deal but also the education I get and the different classes in Latin America… they all kind of deal with like the same things, like cultural identity, and that’s why I am really, really interested in anthropology. But that’s like a really big deal, how people see themselves, how people [self-identify] because it really has an effect on your whole outlook on life.52
Though these young people clearly connect the Spanish language to their ethnic identity, a 2016 poll by the Pew Research Center found that while 95 percent of Latinxs said it was important for future generations to speak Spanish, most Latinx adults (71 percent) said it is not necessary to speak Spanish to be considered Latinx. It may be that the adult poll respondents are at a level of maturity and comfort with their own ethnic identity—and define it more broadly—than the adolescents in the interview studies cited here. In the active exploration stage of ethnic identity, visible symbols of one’s identity—in this case one’s spoken language—are very important, but they may be less so later on. While it may not be considered essential by all, the Pew researchers conclude, “Spanish is still a characteristic that, for the most part, unites much of a group. About three-quarters of Latinos, no matter where they are from, speak Spanish at home.”53
Given the strong connection between language and identity, it seems very important for educators to think carefully about how they respond to Latinx children’s use of Spanish at school. As Sonia Nieto points out, schools often work hard to strip away the child’s native language, asking parents to speak English to their children at home, punishing children with detention for using their native language at school, or even withholding education until children have mastered English. While of course fluency in English is a necessary educational goal, the child’s fluency in Spanish need not be undermined in order to achieve it.54
The bilingual education programs of the late twentieth century have largely been eliminated. In 1998, California voters approved Proposition 227, replacing bilingual education with Structured English Immersion (SEI), an approach that involves separating English-language learners from their English-speaking classmates and teaching them not only the English language but some of their academic content in English, rather than using the foundation of the child’s first language to build understanding of academic content. In 2002, with the introduction of the federal No Child Left Behind law, signed by President George W. Bush, the Bilingual Education Act of 1967 was effectively repealed. Regrettably, research indicates that the elimination of bilingual education programs has had a negative impact on student learning.55
All good teachers know that learning builds on prior knowledge and experiences. In the case of language-minority students, this means that their native language can be a strong foundation for future learning. If we think of language development as the concrete foundation of a building, it makes sense that it needs to be strong to sustain the stress of many tons of building materials that will be erected on top of it. This is analogous to what takes place when English-speaking students enter school: they use the language they know as a foundation for learning the content of the curriculum. Because they know the majority language, this is usually a seamless process. For English-language learners, however, not knowing English is a tremendous disadvantage, not because their native language is ineffectual for learning but because schools do not generally view languages other than English as a resource for learning. Extending the metaphor further, it would be as if the strong foundation that had been created were abandoned and the building materials were placed on top of a sandlot across the street. Needless to say, the building would crumble quickly.56
Nieto and others are quick to point out that bilingual education alone could not completely reverse the history of school failure that Latinx students have experienced. But it does challenge the alienating and emotionally disruptive idea that native language and culture need to be forgotten in order to be successful.
Living in the Shadows: The Undocumented Immigrants
In the days following Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential election, there were reports of schoolchildren teasing their Mexican American classmates that they could be deported.57 The Los Angeles Unified School District launched a hotline to help immigrant students and their families deal with their fears about the incoming president’s campaign promise to deport millions of undocumented immigrants.58 Though the vast majority of Mexican Americans are US citizens, in some cases for many generations, Latinxs in general and Mexican Americans in particular are often stereotyped and suspiciously regarded as “illegals.” For that reason alone, all are impacted, directly or indirectly, by the rhetoric and attitudes toward undocumented immigrants.
According to the Pew Research Center, as of 2014 there were 11.1 million unauthorized immigrants in the US, representing 3.5 percent of the total population, a number that has been relatively stable since 2009. At that time, Mexicans made up 52 percent of all unauthorized immigrants (5.8 million people).59 Keep in mind that
the total Latinx population in 2015 was 56.6 million and of that the Mexican American population was 63.4 percent, or approximately 36 million people. Since 2009 the number of unauthorized immigrants from Mexico has been declining while the number of immigrants without authorization has increased from Central America (i.e., Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras) and Asia (primarily China), as well as sub-Saharan Africa.60 The population of unauthorized immigrants is concentrated in six states—59 percent live in California, Texas, Florida, New York, New Jersey, and Illinois.61 Sixty-six percent of adult immigrants without legal status in 2014 had been living in the US for at least ten years. During that time, many had given birth to children, who, due to their birth in the US, are citizens.62
There are approximately 5.5 million children who have at least one undocumented parent. Of those children, 4.5 million (81 percent) are US-born citizens. So-called mixed status families, where some members are citizens or legal permanent residents and others are not, suffer tremendous anxiety about the possibility of a family member’s deportation.63 “The most damaging family event associated with parental unauthorized status is the removal of a parent from the United States.… Between July 2010 and September 2012, 205,000 noncitizens who were deported claimed to have at least one US-citizen child, representing an annual average of about 90,000 parental deportations.”64
The impact of a parent’s removal on children is significant both emotionally and in terms of their physical security. The loss of a parent’s income is devastating to the remaining family members’ economic well-being, and fears of additional government action may lead families to flee or to keep children out of school. Even if there has been no arrest or parental removal, the chronic fear and toxic stress experienced by parents can manifest as behavioral problems, anxiety, and depressive symptoms in children.65
For the population of children who are themselves unauthorized immigrants, brought to the US in early childhood by their parents, their awareness of their undocumented status becomes part of their identity development in adolescence and young adulthood in very painful ways. Sociologist Roberto G. Gonzales studied the transition to adulthood experienced by undocumented Latinx young adults, twenty to thirty-four years of age, who came to the US before the age of twelve and live in California, still the state where the largest population of undocumented immigrants live.66 It is worth noting that undocumented children may grow up unaware of their immigration status. Out of a desire to protect them from worry or to prevent them from exposing the family’s secret, parents may not tell their children that they are undocumented. The Supreme Court ruled in 1982 (Plyler v. Doe) that undocumented children have a right to a K–12 education, and schools are required by the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) to keep students’ records confidential, so immigration authorities do not have access to them. Consequently, children’s immigration status has little impact on life at school until adolescence; they are in what Gonzales calls a state of “suspended illegality.”67 They sit alongside US-born peers, learn to speak English, socialize with friends, participate in school activities, and make plans for their future as all young people do.
It is around age sixteen, when US-born peers start to drive, get part-time jobs, and fill out financial aid forms for college applications, that undocumented teens’ awareness of their dilemma becomes acute. All of these activities require a Social Security number, which they can’t get. When the realization hits, the emotional response is anger, frustration, confusion, and despair—a “period of paralyzing shock.” Miguel describes his response: “During most of high school, I thought I had my next 10 years laid out. College and law school were definitely in my plans. But when my mom told me I wasn’t legal, everything was turned upside down. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t see my future anymore.”68
Cory, a young Latina, first felt shock, then anger toward her parents for not telling her the truth earlier.
They thought that by the time I graduated I would have my green card. But they didn’t stop to think that this is my life.… Everything I believed in was a big lie. Santa Claus was not coming down the chimney, and I wasn’t going to just become legal. I really resented them.… I feel as though I’ve experienced this weird psychological and legal-stunted growth. I’m stuck at 16, like a clock that has stopped ticking. My life has not changed at all since then. Although I’m 22, I feel like a kid. I can’t do anything adults do.69
As Gonzales writes, “Illegal status places undocumented youth in a developmental limbo.”70
It is a natural response to seek comfort from friends when one learns upsetting news, but in this case, undocumented adolescents may be afraid of revealing their newly discovered status because of the stigma and the legal risk. One study participant described hearing a teammate using derogatory terms to describe players on an opposing team, assuming that they were undocumented. What would this friend say about him if he knew his status? What would teachers say?
Feeling scared and alone, some of the adolescents Gonzales studied lost hope for the future and dropped out of school. Others confided in a trusted adult and were encouraged to stay in school, and in some cases, they were able to get to and through college with the assistance of mentors who helped them find financial assistance. Sadly, whether they successfully completed high school and college or not, eventually they hit an occupational dead end due to their legal limbo. Gonzales found that by their midtwenties, both college-goers and school dropouts held similar occupations—the same low-wage jobs that their parents held. They had few legal choices even if they had earned advanced degrees. Coming to that realization was like “waking up to a nightmare.”71
Gonzales closes his study with these words: “We must ask ourselves if it is good for the health and wealth of this country to keep such a large number of U.S.-raised young adults in the shadows. We must ask what is lost when they learn to be illegal.”72 These questions are exactly the questions the nation is facing as of this writing in January 2017 as the transition of presidential power goes from Barack Obama to Donald Trump. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program created by President Obama’s executive order in 2012 has allowed more than 750,000 young unauthorized immigrants who arrived in the US before the age of sixteen and have no serious criminal convictions to go to school or get a work permit and receive protection from deportation for a two-year period. Not all who are eligible have come forward, some perhaps wary about reporting themselves to the federal authorities, but it is estimated that 78 percent of those eligible have applied to the program.73 Once an individual is approved for the program, the benefits can be renewed after the first two-year period expires. Gonzales interviewed his study respondents before DACA was initiated—today the program offers a potential lifeline to young people like Margarita:
I graduated from high school and have taken some college credits. Neither of my parents made it past fourth grade, and they don’t speak any English. But I’m right where they are. I mean, I work with my mom. I have the same job. I can’t find anything else. It’s kinda ridiculous, you know. Why did I even go to school? It should mean something. I mean, that should count, right? You would think. I thought. Well, here I am, cleaning houses.74
Will that lifeline be taken away from DACA beneficiaries by the new president? At this writing, we don’t know.
It is easy to feel sympathy for the young people caught in this undocumented dilemma and to lament the potential loss of human capital for a nation in need of talent. Yet what is the role of racism in this narrative? Some readers may say, “This is not about race or racism; it is about illegal activity—crossing the border without permission has consequences for adults and, unfortunately, their children.” Historian Natalia Molina has another perspective on that question that is worth considering. She writes:
What we are seeing is the reanimation of longstanding stereotypes—what I call racial scripts… that present Mexicans as unassimilable, criminal, even diseased.… The history of who gets t
o be “legal” in our country is complex. European immigrants who came to the US in the 19th and early 20th centuries faced few restrictions. And even when immigrants broke the rules, short statutes of limitation meant they were rarely deported. When laws changed in 1924, the federal government took steps to make European immigrants “legal” and pave the way for their eventual assimilation. Deportations were suspended, and immigrants could pay a small fee to register when they arrived in the United States. Mexican immigrants enjoyed no such opportunities. Instead, they faced increasing regulation through the Border Patrol, established in 1924.… In the 1920s, like now, employers opposed immigration quotas because they limited the availability of low-wage labor. But even this supposed openness to Mexicans nonetheless cast them as alien workers, not as immigrants arriving to the American melting pot. And during the Great Depression, when Mexican labor was no longer needed, the U.S. sent an estimated 1 million Mexicans back to Mexico, including some U.S. citizens of Mexican descent.75
Drawing the contrast between the way European immigrants were viewed and the way Mexican immigrants were regarded during the same historical periods, Molina revisits the history of Mexican segregation (akin to the Jim Crow treatment that Blacks experienced in the South—Mexican immigrants were barred from swimming pools and restaurants, separated in neighborhoods, movie theaters, and cemeteries). What becomes clear is that the “you don’t belong here” message was undoubtedly part of the Latinx past, even for those who were US citizens, and for now it continues to be a part of their present.
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? Page 28
