Politics of desire, policies of replacement: Race, empire, and worth(iness) in Hmong language education

• Published in: International journal of educational research Vol. 128; p. 102474
• Main Author: Cushing-Leubner, Jenna
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 2024
• Subjects: Bilingual education; Dual language education; Heritage language; Hmong; Raciolinguistics; Settler futurity; Bilingual education; Hmong; Dual language education; Settler futurity; Heritage language; Raciolinguistics
• ISSN: 0883-0355
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijer.2024.102474

•Settler colonialism and racial-capitalism influence language education policy.•Nation-states racialize refugee-subjects through raciolinguistic positioning.•Tensions between community language desires and nation state language ideologies shape language education options.•Hmong language education in U.S. reflect community-state tensions to racialize refugee-subjects through language positioning. This article considers the attemps and limitations of using dual language education schooling for the purpose of interrupting colonial conversion, and cultivating anticolonial, decolonizing, or Indigenizing education by and for displaced Indigenous language communities who have been constructed as stateless refugees (e.g. Hmoob in the U.S.). It specifically focuses on Hmong attempts to leverage community control of U.S. schools through mechanisms of public charter schools and dual language bilingual education schools to fulfill desires for Hmong futurity and language sustainability. Data from a critical policy analysis of the number of Hmong-specific school-based programs, their school language education policies, and narrative interviews with current and former administrators were analyzed using concepts from raciolinguisitics, racial capitalism, and settler colonialism. Findings reflect nearly all of the school programs explicitly stated goals to fulfill community desires for sustaining Hmong within the context of U.S. English-dominance. However, the majority have not successfully formed or maintained heritage dual language education programs. Analysis suggests the concept of raciolinguistic settler futurity as a way to identify sociopolitical forces shaping curriculum and language policy in heritage language dual language education that are contradictory to the goals of refugee community language futures and maintenance of cultural practices and knowledge systems within settler states.