Upon contemplating the link between language, power and social hierarchy, it becomes more and more obvious that language is never impartial, rather, it is heavily tied to the systems of race, class, and institutional control. Both the reading on “Language, Racialization, and Racism” and Dr. Mike Mena’s understanding of Richard Ruiz’s “Orientations in Language Planning” (1984) underline the fact that language policy and perception are continuously influenced by and, in part, support the global social power balance.
Mena, referring to Ruiz, describes a framework that distinguishes three major approaches to language in the U.S. where “language as problem,” “language as right,” and “language as resource.” The “language as right” strategy, on the one hand, gives a legal basis for linguistic justice but also keeps the conflict alive, according to Ruiz, because it portrays the language diversity through the lens of court battles and compliance, which is minimal at best, rather than opening-up of non-traditional groups through inclusion. The 'most radical' in this transition, he implies, is the ‘language as resource’ tactic that treats linguistic heterogeneity as an advantage (Mena, on Ruiz, 1984). Nevertheless, such a mindset calls for a total overhaul of social attitudes, one that not only praises multilinguality in principle but also changes the structure of institutions to facilitate it.
This pertains to how language gets racialized in U.S. society. The article on "Language, Racialization, and Racism" vividly describes how speakers of certain dialects and people who use linguistic practices typical of marginalized communities are not only looked down upon but also are the patients of the applied linguistics processes. Anti-Asian prejudice is the case behind the “Chinese restaurant syndrome” and not the scientific evidence; this is how even food and health discourse are tied to the legacy of racialized language ideologies. The same goes for African American and Chicanx English, which are often considered to be inferior or nasty forms of English, while in fact they are linguistic systems with their respective rules. However, this ignoring is not merely about language; it is a manifestation of structural racism that demonizes the speakers and, consequently, restricts their access to resources (Language, Racialization, and Racism).
A common point in both texts that attracts attention is the manner in which institutions (schools, courts, media, etc.) promote white, monolingual standards as the norm. Ruiz claims that language planning is social planning which means that the choice of languages to be taught, respected and supported is, in fact, a choice of whose lives are valued. If schools treat non-English languages as subordinates or enemies that have to be conquered, they are not only carrying out the educational process, they are also perpetuating the forces behind assimilation and exclusion. Moreover, when African American English is the only way of speaking that gets the silent treatment in the classroom, this is not just a matter of “grammar”; it is an issue of the whole race of students who are black getting their humanity denied.
At the end of the day, the two readings ask us to see how closely language is connected to identity, belonging and justice. In order to open up the multilingualism sector as a resource, we have to deal with the racial ideologies that have always been the ones behind the language policy in the U.S and re-perceive our institutions through a lens that gives priority to linguistic justice and cultural admiration.