When Racial, Transnational, and Immigrant Identities, Literacies, and Languages Meet: Black Youth of Caribbean Origin Speak

Abstract

Background/Context Immigrants are described as somewhat fixed in their geographical locations and activities in the world, having made a permanent move from their nation of origin to a new homeland. In contrast, transnational people are defined as those who live their lives across two or more nations and hold strong, multiple attachments to their nation-states. Frameworks of race are often centered in studies of the language and literacy practices of immigrant youth while transnational theories are typically prioritized in studies of transnational youths’ language and literacy practices. Research Questions/Participants This article explores extant research on the language and literacy practices and experiences of Black immigrant and Black transnational youth of Caribbean origin for whom the U.S. is a home. The purpose is to uncover similarities, differences, and nuances that may exist between the language and literacy practices and experiences of these populations. Research Design The extant research was analyzed through theoretical concepts such as micro-cultures, ethnoracial assignment and ethnoracial identity, raciolinguistics, and language and literacy as social practices. Findings Literacies prominent for both Black immigrant and Black transnational youth include reading, writing, the performing arts, and digital literacies. Analysis found that Black immigrant and Black transnational youth, through their language and literacy practices, undertake significant work in deconstructing Blackness as a monolithic racial category. The youths’ motivations for language and literacy use and transformation are conceptualized as efforts to make visible multiple ethnoracial identities and micro-cultural practices within an overarching racial category of Blackness. Analysis further found that Black immigrant and Black transnational youths’ experiences with racial, cultural, and linguistic discrimination lead many to subsume their original linguistic and literacy practices beneath the language and literacy practices of dominant ethnoracial groups in their new nations. In the case of Black transnationals, analysis found that they hold thick bonds to their countries of origin and new nations. Further, some transnationals have opportunities to spend extended time and employ their culturally influenced languages and literacies to a fuller degree in nations that hold appreciative perspectives on these repertoires. Such circumstances appear to promote Black transnationals’ abilities to continue developing and valuing their unique ethnoracial identities and ethnoculturally diverse language and literacy practices. Analysis further found that the multiple language and literacy practices of many Black immigrant youth are motivated by their longings to belong to diverse communities and connect to multicultural groups. However, these desires of youths’ were not oriented solely toward their new nation-states. Rather many Black immigrant youth actively seek out connection and consolidation of their homelands of origin and their new nations through language, literacy, and cultural practices. Analysis confirmed that this is a primary motivation for language and literacy development and use in transnational youth. Conclusion This article challenges the binary categories of immigrant and transnational using the cases of Black youth of Caribbean origin and their language and literacy practices. Its findings call for a more dynamic reconceptualization of the relationships among racial, immigrant, and transnational youth identities, literacies, and languages. Given the similarity of goals in the identity, language, and literacy practices of Black immigrant and Black transnational youth, this analysis argues that literacy research knowledge about Black immigrant youth can be enhanced by applying transnational as well as racial frameworks. Likewise, the article proposes that given the similarities of language and literacy goals, practices, and experiences, including racial and ethnic discrimination, shared by Black immigrant and Black transnational youth, future literacy research can undertake more explicit investigations of transnational youth's experiences through racial frameworks. The article suggests that knowledge of this kind can support scholars and educators in theorizing and designing educational spaces and curricula that enable all youth, notwithstanding their self- or other-assigned racial or sociopolitical categorization as native-born, immigrant, or transnational, to actualize while critically analyzing, the full range and diversity of their identities, languages, and literacies.

A Transraciolinguistic Approach for Literacy Classrooms

“…Through intersectionality via critical literacy, a transraciolinguistic approach extends previous research which has illustrated how mechanisms such as codeswitching (see Wheeler & Swords, 2012), code-meshing (see Young & Martinez, 2011), culturally and historically responsive literacy (see Muhammad, 2020), and linguistic justice (see Baker-Bell, 2020) undergird meaning making in literacy and English language arts research. It achieves this goal by foregrounding race (Willis, 2017) while also acknowledging how linguistic racism (see Baker-Bell, 2020) and linguicism (see Skutnabb-Kangas, 1988) influence transnational literacies (see Jiménez et al, 2009;Skerrett & Omogun, 2020), affecting the meaning making of immigrant students of color in literacy learning and practice.…”

“…They leverage literate practice in border‐crossing, locally and globally, virtually and geographically, and willingly and involuntarily (Jiménez et al, 2009; Lam & Warriner, 2012; Zaidi & Dooley, 2021). Students cross these boundaries with versatile linguistic backgrounds that allow them to effectively navigate new school and life worlds (Skerrett, 2015; Skerrett & Omogun, 2020).…”

Spiritual and religious meaning making in language and literacy studies: global perspectives on teaching, learning, curriculum and policy

“…A recent and growing body of work examines literacies and literacy learning in relation to global migration and the experiences of transnationals belonging to different religious groups. Language and literacy scholars are devoting increased attention to religion and spirituality as significant forces in the lives, literacies and learning of transnational youth, those who maintain connections across two or more countries (Skerrett, 2015). Skerrett (2020) documented how Annemarie, a Guyanese-born young woman of Indian descent whose family had immigrated to the Caribbean Island, Sint Maarten, undertook a complex literacy learning process to grapple with her family’s inter-religious heritage and to discern her “one true faith” – a kind of “coming of age” process of claiming one’s religious faith for herself.…”

English has Always Been Present: Transnational Youths Illustrating Language Dynamics in Zacatecas, Mexico

“…These ideologies frequently lead to expectations of how people must use language to be considered part of a territory or group with a defined identity and shared values. This becomes problematic for the transnational migrant who is suspended continuously between multiple frameworks of reference that include at least two languages and two cultures (Skerrett, 2015). The synergies that develop with these dynamic trajectories lead to the emergence of fluid identities, which imply people revealing "different identity positions" (Migge, 2016, p. 7) depending on particular contexts that influence each other resulting in new identity components.…”