This talk explores the ways that established discourse frames are implicated in the racialization of particular groups of speakers. Specifically it explores the ways in which the goals presented in foreign language mission statements compare with the experiences of latinx and hispanic bilinguals who have attended spanish language learning programs. In her study, Clemons argues that the stigmatization of Latinx and Hispanic students in Spanish-medium classes is a direct consequence of the racialization of those speakers as non-white, coded in the framing of their Spanish as a burden rather than an asset. While the participants’ ethnic self-identifications served to contest the dominant ideologies that undergird educational practices, each internalized the sense that their Spanish was primarily a burden. In order to respond to an increasing population of Latinx and Hispanic bilinguals, results support a restructuring of discourses that permeate language education policy and planning.

Aris Moreno Clemons is a PhD Candidate at the University of Austin at Texas. She is a scholar of raciolinguistics, a branch of sociolinguistics that examines how language practices contribute to the making of ethno-racial identity. Aris’s dissertation critically analyzes the ways in which racial and linguistic profiling affect Dominican-born and Dominican-origin pupils in classroom spaces. Aris interprets students’ identities and language use, as well as teachers’ evaluative judgments and larger institutional practices through the analytical lens of raciolinguistics. “I think it is important to consider processes of racialization that happen through everyday implicit acts that occur under the level of consciousness,” Aris explains.