Literaturnachweis - Detailanzeige
| Autor/inn/en | Bouchereau Bauer, Eurydice; Sánchez, Lenny |
|---|---|
| Titel | Chapter 5: Living "nan lonbraj la"--Haitian Immigrant Young People Writing Their Selves into the World |
| Quelle | In: Teachers College Record, 122 (2020) 13, (36 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift
PDF als Volltext |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Dokumenttyp | gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz |
| ISSN | 0161-4681 |
| Schlagwörter | Haitians; Immigrants; Young Adults; Adolescents; Self Concept; Cultural Maintenance; Acculturation; Social Networks; Racial Identification |
| Abstract | Background: Immigrant young people face many challenges in reconciling sociocultural differences that exist in their day-to-day experiences (e.g., school, home, peers), which raises important questions for how school settings can support these students' navigation of these experiences. Much is yet to be learned about the manifestation processes for these young people. This is especially true for Haitian immigrant young people as they encounter racio-cultural dynamics in the U.S. (e.g., through racism and classism) as they work to construct their Haitianness and straddle the different cultural domains they live out. Context: This article focuses on understanding the lived experiences of three Haitian immigrant young people. The young people included two siblings (ages 22 and 16) and a third child (age 8). Interview methodology was used in order to capture stories from the viewpoint of the young people. The mothers of these young people were also interviewed in order to corroborate the young peoples' experiences and understand greater contexts of their families. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the experiences (e.g., tensions, cultural flexibility) of the three focal young people of how they fashioned various identifications of Haitianness. Two siblings were selected in order to analyze how their experiences of growing up in the same family might yield (dis)similar experiences, and the third child, who was the youngest interviewee, was selected to understand how various identity decision-makings were beginning to be formulated at a younger age. The student interviews specifically focused on background information (i.e., age, school attended), stories told to them by family members or those outside the home about Haiti, how they self-identify and why, perceptions of them in school, what people knew about them in school and what they didn't know about them and why, literacy practices at home and at school, and their lived experiences with friends and family members. In addition, the parent interviews helped us to delve into the parents' expectations and their successes and difficulties in raising children with a Haitian background in the U.S. Findings: The findings unveiled very different experiences for each of the three focal young people that showed tensive and unproblematic decisions they made as they navigated what it meant to be a Haitian immigrant. While some of the individuals' choices preserved more Haitian heritage than others, their decisions revealed how they each occupied plural consciousnesses as they postured varying racial and linguistic selves at school and home. Examples of student choices included acclimating to dominant ("white") views of what it meant to excel in school settings, setting one's self academically apart from peers in order to be beyond reproach, creating private networks of friends who provided cultural validation, viewing one's self as race-less, ascribing to Haitian work values, tying particular language abilities to cultural identities, and masking ethnic heritage at school. Conclusion: Overall, each young person created a different pathway (nan lonbraj la) in formulating one's Haitianness. In fact, their decision-making processes were often quite different from one another. Even so, we found each young person's family played a definitive role in shaping one's opinions on language and cultural identity. This did not always mean, however, the young people were readily accepting of the family's viewpoints. In fact, there were many instances where a young person worked to change their parents' language use and cultural affiliations (e.g., food, literacy), causing tension at home about what it means to operate in U.S. society as Haitian. However, all three young people still had at least one family member who positioned themselves as strong advocates for the young people to exhibit their Haitianness in a specific fashion. We also found that all three young people acknowledged race but did not define themselves solely in this way nor designate themselves as one particular race. Racial identification was an evolving marker for each person. Lastly, none of the students' schools adopted priorities to honor the students' immigrant histories or support their diverse ways of existing as young immigrants in these education spaces. Each student, though, did articulate some examples of sharing their Haitian heritage in school, but these instances were rare and not a primary significance. The students simultaneously expressed they did not have a pressing desire, though, for schools to build in more opportunities for them to deepen their heritage culture. Recommendation: Although immigrant young people operate in very diverse ways in their approaches to cultural formation, these processes are rife with challenges steeped in systems of oppression. For this reason, teachers must work to explore how learning spaces can support students' movement across their multiple language and cultural borders. In doing so, we argue, teachers should develop an awareness of the dominant-based systems that influence students' decision-making on how they view or can enact themselves so that teachers can simultaneously build on the students' linguistic and cultural flexibilities. Therefore, we call for further research to examine how these types of pedagogical affordances can exist and to further explore the multidimensional nature of immigrant young people's enculturation processes. (As Provided). |
| Anmerkungen | Teachers College, Columbia University. P.O. Box 103, 525 West 120th Street, New York, NY 10027. Tel: 212-678-3774; Fax: 212-678-6619; e-mail: tcr@tc.edu; Web site: http://www.tcrecord.org |
| Erfasst von | ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC |
| Update | 2024/1/01 |
Literaturbeschaffung und Bestandsnachweise in Bibliotheken prüfen
Permalink als QR-Code
Inhalt auf sozialen Plattformen teilen (nur vorhanden, wenn Javascript eingeschaltet ist)
Teile diese Seite:
