UCLA prof says bilingual education can ‘racialize Latinx students’
According to the professor, American schools must teach ‘about our racialized society in a progressive way.’
She also alleged that ‘[r]ace was created in order to separate folks and oppress some in this hierarchy.’
A professor from the University of California, Los Angeles recently spoke out against bilingual education, which she claims can have negative effects on what she terms “Latinx” students.
Professor Laura Chávez-Moreno made her comments during a Thursday appearance on the Havard EdCast.
She claimed that bilingual education can “racialize Latinx students” through “the idea of gathering students together, thinking that they share a language that they need to maintain.” This, according to Chávez-Moreno, makes bilingual education a “racial project.”
She stated that bilingual education is an “anti-racist” practice, apparently claiming that expecting immigrants to assimilate is “racist,” but she added that bilingual education can still be harmful through “constructing ideas about the Latinx group.”
She continued, saying that American schools should teach “about our racialized society in a progressive way,” something that she does not believe the U.S. has “thought about deeply.”
Chávez-Moreno thinks that bilingual education teachers should combine their current curricula with “ethnic studies” so that students can “understand our racialized society” instead of just learning a foreign language.
Despite her criticisms, she still believes that bilingual education can be beneficial, stating she is “a big proponent of bilingual education programs.”
Chávez-Moreno proposes that schools should adopt what she calls “ambitious teaching” that instructs students about “race and racialization,” claiming that “[r]ace was created in order to separate folks and oppress some in this hierarchy” and that having individuals “ascribed to [a] race” is negative.
[RELATED: Cal State Fullerton offering course promoting ‘Latinx’ advocacy]
She also claimed that “[w]e cannot escape being racialized in our society.”
Chávez-Moreno recently published “How Schools Make Race: Teaching Latinx Racialization in America,” which focuses on how to “reconceptualize Latinx as a racialized group” and calls on readers to “pay attention to how schools construct Latinidad (a concept about Latinx experience and identity) in relation to Blackness, Indigeneity, Asianness, and Whiteness.”
Though many professors and activists use the term “Latinx,” the vast majority of Latinos either actively dislike the term or feel neutral toward it. A recent report revealed that “Latinos are less likely to support politicians who use ‘Latinx.’”
Campus Reform has reached out to Professor Laura Chávez-Moreno for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
