Linguistic Loss: The Cost of English-Only Schooling & "Living a Life of Subtraction"
"Over 30 years have passed since I sat in Ms. Smith’s classroom, yet I still remember the ache in the pit of my stomach."
This week’s essay is written by Vianney A. Gavilanes. It continues her powerful narrative from last week.
I’m sitting in Ms. Smith’s second-grade classroom, looking around, seeing unfamiliar white faces, and hearing gibberish sounds I cannot comprehend. I do not know what I am supposed to do with the paperwork given to me. The teacher comes over, kneels next to my desk, and speaks to me in an uncomprehensive language that I know is English. She points at the worksheet and grabs a crayon from the plastic container in the middle of the table so that all four students sitting in that group can reach and share them.
Her body language tells me she expects me to do something, but I don’t know what exactly I’m supposed to do. So, I grabbed the crayon and began coloring one of the outline figures. The other three children in my group look puzzled and curious at me. The student next to me begins to talk to the one in front of them, and then I hear them giggle. I feel embarrassed. I think they’re laughing at me for not understanding what the teacher asks me. Or maybe I’m doing something wrong with the worksheet. Perhaps I should not be coloring the figure. I look over at their sheets; they were writing letters in the blank spaces, but I could not string them together. I turn back to my worksheet and continue to color the figure, keeping my head down and eyes on my paper. I feel the burning sensation coming from the stares of my peers. I don’t want to look up and meet their eyes. I feel so lost and alone in this new world. At that moment, I would much rather be back with the mean nuns than sit in this classroom with white faces piercing my skin with their inquisitive gazes.
Over 30 years have passed since I sat in Ms. Smith’s classroom, yet I still remember the ache in the pit of my stomach I felt every morning as my dad dropped me off at school. I walked into a classroom where I was not seen, heard, or cared for. I sat at a desk and experienced the cruelty of benign neglect; I was not receiving quality instruction in my language. I would come into the classroom every morning for several weeks and feel I was different from the other children. I physically looked different, and I spoke a language they did not understand, and vice versa. It was as if I was invisible. As if my education did not matter. As if I was a nuisance to the dynamic of the classroom and the teacher. Ms. Smith never smiled at me; she always looked stern, as if mad at me. It breaks my heart to know there are still little brown girls and boys in similar classrooms across the nation suffering from institutional benign neglect.
It was as if I was invisible. As if my education did not matter. As if I was a nuisance to the dynamic of the classroom and the teacher.
That experience took an everlasting toll on my psyche. I did not fully comprehend then the extent of the violence I experienced at the hands of a professed benevolent educational system that enforced English-only policies, purporting to be in the best interest of English language learners. However, now I know that when educators implement and enforce an English-only environment in their classrooms, they inadvertently create a language hierarchy. This language hierarchy positions English as the dominant language within the classroom and, in some cases, explicitly makes the use of Spanish unacceptable. Furthermore, instead of uplifting students as emergent bilinguals, students are divested from their native language when they are treated as deficient English speakers for speaking a language other than English.
I did not fully comprehend then the extent of the violence I experienced at the hands of a professed benevolent educational system that enforced English-only policies.
Furthermore, Ms. Smith’s pedagogical actions perpetrated violence by denying me a translation of the material, alienating me from the learning process, and negating a meaningful engagement with the material. My instruction was reduced to a mere coloring exercise rather than a meaningful interaction with content. What could this teacher have done differently to support me in the classroom? At a bare minimum, she could have reached out to someone who spoke Spanish, including some of the bilingual parents, to help translate the material. This action would have shown some interest on her part to reach out and meet me where I was and not just let me drown in her class. This would have been an act of authentic caring that would have mitigated some of the negative effects. However, educators like Ms. Smith, who create and uphold English-only instruction, deny students the opportunity to utilize their full linguistic repertoire and consequently position them as linguistically deficient within the overall learning context1.
I managed to survive those early years of American schooling, where every day was an inner struggle not to be broken. At home, my parents reminded us daily to “echarle ganas a la escuela” because that was why we came to the U.S.: to have better opportunities. Learning English was our ticket to prosperity.
The High Price
As I sit today and reflect on my schooling, I have a bittersweet taste in my mouth. Observing my academic degrees and accolades, one can say that I am one of the few immigrant success stories. I have graduated from top public universities in the state and received the highest academic degree, all while undocumented. However, this all came at a high price:
The unintended devaluing of Spanish and aesthetic caring practices that continually positioned me as a deficient English speaker created a cognitive dissonance that led to an internalized sense of difference. Throughout my schooling, I was explicitly and implicitly taught that Spanish was inferior to English and was not welcomed in the classroom, school, or the extended society. I was constantly reminded that to be considered successful, I had to learn English, and this meant an unaccented White academic variety.
Throughout my schooling, I was explicitly and implicitly taught that Spanish was inferior to English and was not welcomed in the classroom, school, or the extended society.
I now have the language to name and describe the high price I have paid in return for an American education. It is living a life of subtraction that, ironically, with every addition of English proficiency, American socialization, and accolades, entails an ongoing struggle to retain a sense of self amidst a conglomerate of systems and institutions that overtly and covertly teach me that my language and culture are inferior. Yet, I have resisted the unrelenting pressures to assimilate and lose my Spanish.
My family’s consejos de mantener viva nuestra lengua para poder comunicarnos con nuestros abuelos y familiares en Mexico along with their literacy practices of reading with us in Spanish have allowed me to retain my language. As I sit here writing and thinking in English y español, I am reminded that although my schooling experience was subtractive, it failed to eradicate my home language. Yes, I’ve accrued losses along the way but, el español sigue siendo parte de mi ser y las palabras de mi madre y abuelas siguen viviendo en mí.
Propina
If you missed the first part of Vianney A. Gavilanes’s essay, check it out here:
And, as we noted last week, Vianney’s program, Liberando Nuestras Voces, is launching soon, with various opportunities to support or sign up:
We’ll see you next week!
For related research, see:
Canagarajah, A. S. (2013). Translingual practice: Global Englishes and cosmopolitan relations. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203073889
Garcia, O., & Wei, L. (2014). Translanguaging Language, Bilingualism and Education (1st ed. 2014.). Palgrave Macmillan UK. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137385765
Lang, N. W. (2019). Teachers’ translanguaging practices and “safe spaces” for adolescent newcomers: Toward alternative visions. Bilingual Research Journal, 42(1), 73–89. https://doi.org/10.1080/15235882.2018.1561550
Skerrett, A. (2015). Teaching Transnational Youth—Literacy and Education in a Changing World. Teachers College Press.