Baker-Bell’s, chapter 2, was incredibly poignant — many highlights throughout my reading of it. Building upon the readings from last week, Baker-Bell’s point on standard language ideology stood out to me. In page 15, she notes that “standard language ideology goes unquestioned in our institutions, particularly in schools, as a result of the disinformation and misrepresentation that get distributed about dominant languages and marginalized languages and dialects.” This point ties into the concept of linguistic hegemony which is ensured when dominant groups can “convince those who fail to meet those standards to view their failure as being the result of the inadequacy of their own language.” Such a concept is especially relevant/applicable in the U.S., where the dominant group is white anglophones. One aspect that makes the U.S. an intriguing place is despite the dominant group being white anglophones, the U.S. is an incredibly linguistically, racially, and culturally diverse country where not up until recently, English was widely considered but not legally/formally defined as the “official language.” This is precisely the point Baker-Bell (or her quotation of bell hooks) touches upon in the next page: “No doubt, so called “standard” English is “the language of conquest and domination; in the United States, it is the mask which hides the loss of so many tongues, all those sounds of diverse, native communities we will never hear.”
Another point that Baker-Bell makes which I was both taken aback by but also found refreshing was that: “although linguistic racism is socially constructed, like racism, it is permanent and ubiquitous in U.S. society. That is, as long as racism is an issue, we’ll always have linguistic racism […].” This may sound meta, but I’ve been increasingly realizing that the U.S. is inhabitable for immigrant POC communities, especially with the current administration’s policies and agenda. Part of the formation of this thought comes from Baker-Bell’s notion that racism at-large, and specifically linguistic racism, is an aspect of the U.S.’s history with communities of color that is so deeply rooted in society to the extent that I find it to be unending. On this note, I appreciate Baker-Bell’s emphasis on intersectionality. She highlights how linguistic violence and racial violence go hand in hand — such connection have historically been ignored. As Baker-Bell wrote: “children of color’s experiences navigating and negotiating language will be impacted by the interlocking systems and structures of linguicism, racism, and classism, which are interrelated and continuously shaping one another.