| dc.description.abstract | Indigenous language speaking students from Latin America are hidden within the larger Spanish speaking, Latinx student population and are Latinized as demonstrated through this study within a school district in the Southeastern United States. However, the district’s students with interrupted formal education program housed within the English Learners Office called SHINE, which serves recently arrived students with significant gaps in their education and Limited English Proficiency (LEP), has created a unique space in the school district where Indigenous language speaking students from Latin America are affirmed and celebrated. Recognizing the lack of data on Indigenous languages, one of the primary goals of this research project was to collect data on the significant presence of Indigenous language speaking students from Latin America in a Southeastern school district. In five focus groups with Indigenous language speakers at SHINE schools, I identified 17 students who speak seven different Indigenous languages including Achi’, Chatino, Chuj, Garífuna, K’iche’, Mam and Q’eqchi’. I additionally conducted interviews with nine SHINE teachers to learn about Indigenous student linguistic identity experiences in the SHINE program and in their schools as a whole. Within the data, students and educators indicated a dominance of Spanish, a lack of district data on Indigenous language speakers and a reduction in students’ Indigenous language proficiencies. Each of these is a force or effect of Latinization that Indigenous students experience as their Indigeneity is erased through the assumption of their Spanish proficiency and Latinx identity. Nevertheless, multilingual students, especially Indigenous language speaking students from Latin America, continue to operate within an education system that was not designed for such linguistically diverse students. | |
