It is within the learning of language and cultures that critical truths-not all Muslims are terrorists, not all Mexicans are rapists, there is no official U.S. It is also a responsibility to encourage a broadening of perspectives that might-full teacher disclosure here-even instigate a process of “ unlearning ” when need be. It is a foreign language instructor’s privilege to serve as ambassador between languages, cultures, and histories, and to embark on the challenge of exposing students to what lies beyond artificially constructed borders and boundaries. These are new pedagogical obstacles that have been startlingly absent until now in a craft meant to provoke constructive focus. When a student refuses to use vocabulary ( Ojalá) after discovering it’s origins ( Insh’Allah), or when a discussion about the current crisis in Venezuela devolves into belligerency toward Chavez’s contempt of el norte and its leaders, for example, it is challenging to seize what could be a teachable moment without letting the resulting dialogue succumb to more misplaced nationalist fervor. Silent accusations accompanied by glaring stares meet me as we embark on discussions about communism, fascism, and socialism. It bleeds hostile toxicity into learning that depends on student inquisitiveness, participation, and, ultimately, tolerance. Since June 2015, this jingoist resistance to global awareness or understanding has surged in the classroom as misplaced defiance and fueled by bogus social conspiracy theories and false threat narrative propagation. The current political climate has created a paradoxical conundrum for instructors of foreign language and culture.
It appears that, to some, pursuing foreign language and cultural studies is in conflict with current ideas around what patriotism or national loyalty means in the United States. This was just one example, but there have been an alarming number of similar incidents since President Trump won the election in 2016. In one imbecilic move, the intrusive commentary not only demoted the intellectual pursuit of language learning, but did so using an erroneous concept -"American” as a language. And then I saw it: “Speak American or GTFO ”.Īt any institute of learning such commentary is disparaging.
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