The past is prologue

Abstract

This article examines reactions to the changing linguistic ecology in the U.S. state of Iowa, which is experiencing a demographic phenomenon often referred to as the New Latino Diaspora (NLD) (Hamann et al., 2002). We first examine the historical processes and social structures that link current language policy initiatives within Iowa to local and national nativism. We then analyze public policies and texts to reveal how language ideologies circulate across diverse texts and contexts, forming discourses that shape the experiences of Latin@s in Iowa.

“This is our country, too”: Embodied Experiences of and Resistance to Neo‐nationalism in a Midwest School District

“…At the time of the study, there were approximately 78 language backgrounds represented in the PSD and it had a 25% increase in its population of students designated as ELL in a period of 4 years. Consistent with the state's English‐only policy, which was constructed upon nationalist ideology (Johnson et al., 2018), the district's educational language policy employed English as the medium of instruction. It consisted of an ESL service model.…”

Language policy and multilingual identity at home and in school

“…In keeping with current methodological innovation in the field of language policy towards more action-oriented research (Johnson & Stephens, 2018), I would add that not only should policy research account for these diverse factors, it should ask how participation in policy processes can be made more expansive to make space for students and families, often positioned as subjects, to work as policy actors. With this goal in mind, I now turn to the construct of social identity as a metaphorical prism to refract and illuminate the multiplicity of ways in which individuals of diverse backgrounds and social positions experience, participate in, contest, and potentially shape language policy processes.…”

“…Research has shown this to be the case in the state where the study took place. Both tensions and transformations have arisen (Johnson, Stephens & Lynch, 2018;Baker & Hotek, 2003). According to Baker & Hotek (2003), receiving communities in the state offer small populations, some with active community initiatives to learn from and incorporate new residents.…”

“…As will be discussed in later chapters, this discourse made its way into the mouths of teachers, students, and administrators in policymaking sessions, mainstream classrooms, and ELL classrooms alike. Trump's voice is heteroglossic (Bakhtin, 1982), drawing upon the voices of others in US history such as Theodore Roosevelt (Johnson, Stephens, & Lynch, 2018) and Noah…”

“…Webster (Flores, 2014) to reinforce this monoglossic, nativist, White supremacist position. In terms of identities, an ideological link between language, country, and race is realized through Trump's position as one of the early advisory members of U.S. English, an organization with racist origins made public in a leaked memo written by one of its cofounders, Steve Tanton (Johnson, Stephens, & Lynch, 2018). Rosa (2014) describes the semiotic process visible in this language and social action as the construction of ideological bundles at the intersections of language, race, immigration, and national identity; one bundle links the identity positions of American, Whiteness, and English, while the other links identity positions of immigrant, "brownness," and languages other than English.…”