discussion for ultimate_writer

04 Jul discussion for ultimate_writer

1. No credit for posts where you say ‘colored’ when you mean ‘people of color’, or when you say ‘racist’ when you mean ‘prejudiced’.

 

Copy this question into your post and answer it:  Think of some stereotypes you have heard about people on welfare.  Try to see, in the data on TANF, if the stereotypes you have heard are accurate.  Then use the TANF files to answer the question.  Write about some of the discrepancies you discover.  The files you need are in the Wk 8 Module.

You can choose one of these questions if you like:

•        The Stereotype:  Families on TANF have lots of children. The Question:  What is the average number of children in TANF families?

•        The Stereotype:  Most people on TANF are Black.  The Question:  What are the racial characteristics of people who receive TANF?

•        The Stereotype:  Most people on TANF are Black.  The Question:  What are the racial characteristics of TANF families in Washington State?

Other students posting may helps you:

The Stereotype:  Families on TANF have lots of children. The Question:  What is the average number of children in TANF families?

This is one of the main arguments people make when it comes to these types of programs “Well if they didn’t have so many kids, they could afford to buy food and healthcare”. While the cost of food has been on the rise and the cost of healthcare for even one child is astronomical, the average amount of people in a family that is using TANF is only about 3 people. As seen here from a quote I lifted directly from the Office of Family Services page, “The average number of persons in TANF families was 2.4, including an average of 1.8 recipient children.”. I find this weird because with this data we can see that the people that use these programs lean more toward single parent homes and that the kids actually make up most of the family. This actual seems to go toward single mothers in terms of who the parent actually is.

Source#1: https://www.statista.com/statistics/242074/percentages-of-us-family-households-with-children-by-type/ (Links to an external site.)

Source#2(because I dont know what that statista link data is):https://www.census.gov/hhes/families/files/graphics/FM-3.pdf

This seems to make it seem that the ones who benefit from these programs are single mothers with one child, sometimes two. I don’t think people who are against these programs actually care who needs the assistance, I think they just don’t want to have tax money go to this because they see no personal benefit. That’s what it really comes down to in how I see those people, They think “well I don’t get anything out of it so why should I care.” people are naturally selfish but the one that actively go out of their way to complain about kids getting  food and shelter are scum.

2. No credit for posts where you say ‘colored’ when you mean ‘people of color’, or when you say ‘racist’ when you mean ‘prejudiced’.

Copy this into your post and then answer it:  Write a question of your own, about the assigned readings section 8.2,  that you have been wondering about, and then try to answer some of it.

8.2 Session 8.2     Bilingualism

Hi. How are you doing? This quarter is starting to move a little fast for me. We must concentrate now to stay focused.  You’re getting good at making connections to the social construction of knowledge, and power and privilege. Today I’m asking you to connect race and social class to power, privilege, and knowledge construction.

Let’s look at how the issue of Bilingualism connects race and social class to power and privilege. First, you should know up front that I do not come to this conversation objectively. I come as someone who grew up speaking three languages fluently. I learned to speak English and Italian at the same time (when I was about 2 years old), and learned to speak French when I was 12 years old. Several times during the years I was trilingual, I returned to the United States. The first time I was in the second grade. We lived in Massachusetts, and I went to Catholic school. My teachers (the nuns, you understand?) thought I was beyond cute, especially because I spoke the language of the pope, who was Italian at that time. I remember constantly having to produce this or that word in Italian for something we were studying. I got a lot of attention. The second time I returned to the United States, I was three months into my senior year in high school. My family transferred from Brussels, Belgium (where French and Flemish are spoken) to Grand Forks, North Dakota. In Grand Forks, my peers thought I was strange because I barely spoke English, but the fact that I taught them to swear in both French and Italian made up for some of my strangeness. Sort of. From my perspective, nothing made up for finishing high school in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Not even swearing. Nothing. Rien. Niente. Nada.

Nobody, NOBODY, ever said to me in my life, “Why can’t you just speak English”. Everyone I met then and meet now thinks its cool that I learned so many languages in early childhood. Why is it cool that I speak several languages, but not cool that many of our nation’s schoolchildren speak a language other than English?   I have some answers to share from a multicultural perspective. Let me tell you a story:

My father was very proud of his daughters’ linguistic abilities (by the time my sisters and I were teenagers, we were all in various stages of becoming trilingual because we wanted to speak to BOYS who only spoke French or Italian). However, Dad only wanted us to speak the languages he understood. My mother, my two sisters and I spoke Italian, French and English interchangeably (it’s called code-switching, and is very common in bilingual families). My father spoke English, and understood Italian. So, he would let us speak English and Italian in the house, but not French. He thought if we were speaking French, we were talking about him… This made us roll around on the floor and howl with laughter. “Get over yourself”, we told him, “Why would you assume that you are so much the center of our lives that we would be talking about you?” He remained convinced that we deliberately spoke French to talk about him behind his back. As if….

You can understand this: my father was using ‘language privilege’.

I want to say this right up front: much of the national debate about language learning has nothing to do with language. It has to do with race. From a multicultural perspective, it has to do with ‘language privilege’. Let’s look at some myths (‘stories’) and some facts around language learning to help us unpack our assumptions.

Myths around second language learning:

Myth

Fact

Myth:  If people want to come here, they should speak English. People think they can come here and not learn to speak English.

People who immigrate to any country KNOW that they have to learn the language. Most do so as quickly as they can.

Lilly Wong Fillmore tells a story about this myth:  This is a story about someone’s immigrant parents who arrived in America at the turn of the century speaking not a word of English, and who, in just six months, could not only speak perfect English, but had already established themselves as captains of industry. It’s the big American immigrant success story. These people learned English in no time because they were grateful for the chance to be Americans, and so they prospered. This myth gets better with the telling. Like all powerful myths, this one contains a touch of truth: when the new language is structurally similar to the native language, it is easier to learn…

The immigrants of earlier generations had just as much trouble learning English as present day immigrants. Some, like the mythical grandparents, may have learned quickly, but certainly not in six months. Many others did not learn quickly at all, just as many of today’s immigrants do not learn English quickly or at all. The big difference between then and now is that there were plenty of jobs that didn’t call for much English a couple of generations ago, so people who didn’t know English could nevertheless be employed. Present day immigrants are not greatly different than earlier ones (in most respects) but the social and economic situation they find in America is quite different than the one that earlier immigrants found. (interview with Lily Wong Fillmore)

Myth

Fact

Myth: If people are speaking a language you don’t understand, they must be talking about you.

People are generally talking about whatever they are talking about. You are not the center.

If by some chance, they are talking about you, so what? It’s not your call what other people talk about, right?

Betsey:  This is language privilege, the assumption that my language is the only/best language, and I can choose who says what and how. It is also a very American kind of privilege to assume that you are so interesting that others have nothing better to do than to talk about you.  This concept originated during slavery days, when plantation owners worried that their slaves were planning revolts.  Make a connection to the Giddy Multitude 🙂

Clarifying:  Language privilege, in the way we use this term in this class, means the assumption that the language I speak is the best language, and that I have the right to decide what other people talk about and what language they use.

Myth:  It’s rude to speak a language that others don’t understand.

Betsey:  This is called language privilege.  Many other communities and other nations are accustomed to hearing many different languages spoken around them. Most are not so insecure as to worry about what others are talking about.

Myth:  Our European ancestors immigrated here and learned English on their own. They didn’t have all these expensive bilingual programs. Why should the new immigrants?

Fact: Bilingual education has always been a feature of American public schools. The first public kindergarten funded in the US was taught in German and English.

Betsey:  I’m sure you are much better at coming up with these stories than I am. So, check out your stories:

Do a search online for Bilingualism and English Only. Find a link that takes a position against Bilingualism and see if you can sort out what their assumptions are. Remember you don’t have to agree or disagree; you only have to understand/explain. Trying to determine the assumptions will help you understand. Try to find some English Only sites. For those who have expressed concerns about your workload, only look at the top several hits.  Those who are emailing me daily to ask for more links in the Sessions, do more :).  Try to make a connection between language privilege, and White, male, and heterosexual privilege. Write about your thoughts in the Forum.

Please don’t think this is optional.  It is critical to your continued learning that you begin to read outside what is familiar to you.  You may choose one if you are pressed for time, but do please choose one. For those of you planning to be educators, the standard is higher, so read more. We will come back to this again.

3. No credit for posts where you say ‘colored’ when you mean ‘people of color’, or when you say ‘racist’ when you mean ‘prejudiced’.

There is a lot going on this week.  Write about some of it.  Show us in what you write that you can explain from a multicultural perspective.  Remember to copy the question prompt, to get those points.

8.3

Session 8.3     Language Privilege

I want to go back to this issue of Bilingualism for a little longer, because it speaks directly to the concept of unacknowledged and unexamined privilege. White U.S. culture is reluctant to think of itself as privileged, and language privilege is deep in the structure of the dominant culture. Try to see it from a multicultural perspective.

Bilingualism and English Only are so much a part of the cultural landscape that all the various positions make sense, seen from a particular perspective. Here’s what I’ve been thinking about:

Pat Buchanan (former presidential candidate) (see him in debates with Rachel Maddox) says, “In order that Americans can remain one people, and one nation, the United States needs a common language for us all. That language is the English language”

From a multicultural perspective, this is a no-brainer. OF COURSE, many of us need a common language to communicate. Buchanan makes some assumptions that are problematic from a multicultural perspective. HE thinks its language that divides us. Multiculturalists think it is privilege that divides us, and they think they can prove it. Look at these assumptions:

Myth:  If everyone agreed to speak only one language, we wouldn’t have so much war and interethnic conflict.

Fact: Of course, people need a common language to understand one another. But that doesn’t require eliminating minority languages; it only requires bilingualism. Switzerland has four official languages and has never had a war. Finland has three (Finnish, Swedish, and Lapp). Hawai’i has had two co-official state languages since 1978 — English and Hawaiian — and no civil strife has resulted) (from the bilingualism, at least)

Fact: On the other hand, much of the conflict in the world has erupted in places where there is only one language. For example, in the U.S.’s own Civil War, both sides spoke English, and in the Bosnian conflict, all the parties speak dialects of a single language, Serbo-Croatian. In the world’s bloodiest genocide since World War II, Khmer-speaking Cambodians under Pol Pot killed millions of other Khmer-speaking Cambodians (Diamond, 1993)

Language is not the “glue” that binds us together. What binds us as a nation is a common belief in freedom, including the freedom to speak any language we please. That perspective makes sense, too, right? Here’s what has power for me: Who benefits if we have a policy of English Only? Who benefits if we have a policy of English Plus? Imagine I had the time to draw two t-shirts here with political slogans on them:

I Speak English Only                                                                                I don’t speak English Only

Which has more benefits for America’s children, speaking only one language, or speaking more than one language?

I want to leave you today with some commentary from an interview with Lily Wong Fillmore:

‘We must not only ask whether young children can learn a second language easily, or more easily, than at any other time in their lives. We must also ask what it will cost them. Early in life, children’s knowledge of their native languages is not yet stable enough to withstand the assimilative forces they will encounter in school. Unlike other societies where there is a greater acceptance of linguistic diversity, in the US you find children giving up their primary language as they learn English. If the cost of learning English is the loss of their family language, the price may be too high.

For children from families where parents speak little or no English, we are talking about a tragedy, especially when the children reach adolescence. When parents and children don’t have a common language for communicating with one another, there is real alienation. The parents are unable to influence the kids as they grow up. Parents and children can’t share the kinds of difficult experiences that both are living through as they become involved with a new society, in new ways of doing things. They can’t provide the mutual support family members need in such situations.

An important aspect of this problem is that many first-generation immigrant families are hierarchically organized. The parents know more than the children do in their native language. But the children–no matter how poor their English is–nevertheless know it better than their parents. In the family’s relations with the English-speaking world outside of the home, the children speak for the family. They are in command, as it were, outside the home. The parents are put in the position of dependency on their children and of not knowing as much as the children do. This would be a difficult shift in role-relationships for any family, but it is devastating in families where roles are rigidly defined and hierarchical.

The parents can learn English, but few of them can do so fast enough or well enough for the family to handle the rapid shift that their children will be making linguistically. The reason why parents can’t learn English as fast as their children is not because they don’t want to, or because they don’t try. There just isn’t time or opportunity for them to do so. As immigrants, they work long hours at hard jobs. Where are they to find the time to learn English? What kinds of ESL (English as a Second Language) classes are available to them?

There are not enough classes, the pay is too low to attract qualified teachers, and classes are too big for teachers to do the kind of teaching that is needed.

The situation is exacerbated by parents thinking they can learn English from their children. So, they encourage their children to use English at home, making it the high-status language there also. The parents attempt to learn from their children who are imperfect English language speakers, and the children practice with their parents, who are also imperfect language speakers. The native language is lost, and so is the parental authority. The home language, which is the language the parents are fluent in and could teach their children, is abandoned by the children as soon as they learn enough English to get by.

The opposition to bilingual education in the US is political and emotional, a visceral response to foreignness. We’re scared of foreign influences and ways of doing things even though most of us were foreigners just a few generations ago. We’ve always been impatient with and intolerant of immigrants. It’s a real sore spot in the American psyche. We have a real fear of linguistic and cultural differences. We don’t trust people we don’t know. We don’t like the idea of people speaking languages around us that we don’t understand. We see ourselves as one people speaking one language and having one common culture (but only if we pretend a whole lot of differences don’t exist). As a people, we can’t deal with our greatest strength–our diversity of experience, or diversity of idioms, and the many-colored ways we have of looking at the world, which comes from our immigrant origins.

Our multilingual immigrant population is a gold mine of economic and political resources for this country. We need to think more carefully about the future of this society, and our relationships with other societies.

We are becoming increasingly incapable of relating with other nations. There was a point when others were generally willing to accommodate us linguistically. Japanese, Chinese, and Mexican businessmen were willing to learn English so they could trade with us. They are not so willing anymore. They’ll learn English so they can deal with us. But we can’t deal with them because we don’t even understand them. As a nation, we have been very arrogant. We have expected others to accommodate to us, but we have not been willing to do so ourselves.

Fillmore says all the things I want to say about the consequences of English Only when seen from a dominant White US cultural perspective only. She also describes some of the benefits of viewing bilingualism from a multicultural perspective.

Are you beginning to see the unintended consequences of unacknowledged language privilege?

Write about your thoughts in the Forum or in your notes.

 

4. From the reading in Takaki this week you have had an introduction to the history ofJapanese and Japanese American internment. Now visit The Densho Project (Links to an external site.) and browse through its contents. Before you leave the site, please visit the Archive section (Links to an external site.) and listen to or view at least two of the interviews and personal histories recorded there. Understand that those being interviewed are relating their experiences in the camps and each individual’s memory of the event may not fit into your understanding of Japanese-American incarceration.

 

Copy this question into your post and then answer it: Write about what you learned, as if you were explaining it to a friend.