NEPANTLA IN GEORGIA AND OAXACA: USING CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS AND LINGUISTIC ETHNOGRAPHY TO UNDERSTAND MULTILINGUAL AND MULTILTIERATE PEDAGOGIES IN ELEMENTARY CLASSROOMS by STEPHANIE LYNN ABRAHAM (Under the Direction of MELISA CAHNMANN-TAYLOR) ABSTRACT This dissertation is a methodological combination of critical discourse analysis and linguistic ethnography that explored critical multiliterate pedagogies in superdiverse classrooms. Drawing Anzaldúa’s concept of nepantla, I explore what nepantla pedagogies in my own classroom as well as what it may do for teachers and students. I weave nepantla theory and pedagogy through a critical discourse analysis of ethnographic data collected in a public, Oaxacan, elementary school. The analysis revealed pedagogical discourses that silenced the indigenous languages in the monolingual Spanish classroom. A final analysis of a student’s narrative, which documented the arrest, and deportation of her mother from Georgia, showed how students’ real language and literacy practices are often at odds with the official language and literacy practices promoted by schools and standards. Additionally, the analysis of her story revealed how narratives written from the perspectives of nepantleras have the potential to rewrite truths, possibly changing what society considers moral and good. INDEX WORDS: Nepantla; Critical Discourse Analysis; Linguistic Ethnography; Critical Pedagogy; Critical Literacy; Multiliteracy; Georgia; Oaxaca; Mexico; Migration; Immigration NEPANTLA IN GEORGIA AND OAXACA: USING CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS AND LINGUISTIC ETHNOGRAPHY TO UNDERSTAND MULTILINGUAL AND MULTILTIERATE PEDAGOGIES IN ELEMENTARY CLASSROOMS by STEPHANIE LYNN ABRAHAM M.Ed., North Georgia College & State University, 2006 Ed.S., University of Georgia, 2009 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ATHENS, GEORGIA 2014 © 2014 Stephanie Abraham All Rights Reserved NEPANTLA IN GEORGIA AND OAXACA: USING CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS AND LINGUISTIC ETHNOGRAPHY TO UNDERSTAND MULTILINGUAL AND MULTILTIERATE PEDAGOGIES IN ELEMENTARY CLASSROOMS by STEPHANIE LYNN ABRAHAM Major Professor: Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor Committee: JoBeth Allen Ruth Harman Electronic Version Approved: Julie Coffield Interim Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia August 2014 DEDICATION This work is dedicated to my former students. The ideas found here would not be possible without having known and taught them. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS With so many people to thank, I’ll try to go in order. Mama, thank you for buying me all the books I wanted, for that I have become a lover of words. Daddy, thank you for the stories about the Black Stallion, for that I have become a lover of stories. Shaun, thank you for riding the bus to church that day, if not for you I would not have learned ASL, and I may never have gone back to college. JoBeth, thank you for your back porch, my time spent there has forever changed the way I think about race, poverty, pedagogy, and my life in general. Stephanie, for being so honest about your life, it has helped me be honest about mine. Ruth, for CDA, SFL, and laughter! Misha, for saying, you know I think you’d make a great doctoral student, before that I had never thought that I could. Y gracias Toño, por el español, por Oaxaca y por tu amor. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................................v CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .........................................................................................................1 When Pedagogies Fail ..............................................................................................3 Nepantla Pedagogy ..................................................................................................6 The Contexts ..........................................................................................................10 References ..............................................................................................................14 2 A NEPANTLA PEDAGOGY: COMPARING ANZALDÚA’S AND BAKHTIN’S IDEAS FOR PEDAGOGICAL AND SOCIAL CHANGE .........................................17 Nepantla .................................................................................................................22 Colliding Anzaldúa’s Nepantla with Bakhtin’s Ideological Becoming .................30 Ideological Becoming as an Act of Nepantla ........................................................36 Conclusion ............................................................................................................45 References ..............................................................................................................47 3 USING ANZALDÚA’S NEPANTLA TO EXPLORE CRITICAL MULTILITERATE PEDAGOGIES IN OAXACA, MEXICO ...................................50 Superdiversity and Literacy ...................................................................................50 Theoretical Framework ..........................................................................................52 Methods..................................................................................................................56 The School and Classroom ....................................................................................58 vi Analysis..................................................................................................................62 Findings .................................................................................................................64 Discussion ..............................................................................................................81 References ..............................................................................................................85 4 A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF GISELA’S FAMILY STORY: A CONSTRUAL OF DEPORTATION, ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS, AND LITERACY ................................................................................................................................94 Disrupting Discourses with Student Narratives ...................................................108 Making Sense of Gisela’s Narrative ....................................................................115 Discussion ............................................................................................................123 References ............................................................................................................124 5 CONCLUSION ..........................................................................................................127 Appendices A Guest Column: Local enforcement has cut crime by illegal immigrants........ 131 vii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION I was always a good student. Straight A’s. AP Classes. National Honor Society. With high hopes that my hard work would pay off, I planned on going to a great college, far away from my hometown in Georgia. Reality set in when I received my acceptance letters and the expected cost of attendance. With no money to pay for college, I enrolled in a state university, got two part-time jobs, and used HOPE1 money to fund part of my college expenses. I declared finance as my major, thinking that working in an office and using lots of numbers would lead to the middle-class lifestyle that I so desperately wanted. My college classes were easy and superficial, mostly memorization of dates, formulas, and filling up blue books in a two-hour testing window. After two semesters of classes, I was bored and overworked, so I dropped out. I took a full-time job as an assistant loan officer, processing mortgage applications and mountains of paperwork. But making copies and asking over and over, “How long have you lived at that residence?” was monotonous. I hated going to work each morning. While I processed mortgages during the day, I started working in the Deaf ministry at my church on the weekends. Fascinated with learning American Sign Language, I enrolled in a community college to work on an associate’s degree in Deaf Studies. Eventually, I became an interpreter for two Deaf second graders in a public elementary school. Interpreting was difficult 1 In 1998, the state of Georgia offered tuition scholarships for Georgia high school graduates who completed high school with 3.0 GPA or higher to attend a Georgia public college or university. 1 which also made it fun and interesting work. I enjoyed looking for ways to sign and show fractions and the causes of earthquakes. Amidst this, I was angered by some of the treatment that the Deaf students received at school. Their resource room was a closet; their classroom teacher yelled at them as a means to make herself heard, and one Deaf student was labeled “multiply disabled” by his resource teacher without any evidence because she couldn’t understand what he was signing. Frustrated with these realizations, low pay as a “para- professional,” and lack of respect, I eventually re-enrolled at the university for a degree in elementary education with the hopes of a better salary and more freedom to practice a different pedagogy in my future classroom. When I finally became a teacher, my classrooms were full of diverse students. My students spoke lots of languages: Mexican Spanish, Southern American English, Appalachian English, African American English, and Vietnamese. They lived in public housing, trailer