Introduction

Historically, language has been stripped from minority groups in order for the majority language to rule. For example, in the autobiography The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustava Vassa, The African, Olaudah Equiano gained a hardened life after he was taken overseas as a slave, and wrote on how his known language became worthless. “We saw few or none of our native Africans, and not one soul who could talk to me,” he wrote. “I was a few weeks weeding grass, and gathering stones in a plantation; and at last all my companions were distributed different ways, and only myself was left” (Equiano). The domino effect of White superiority is still prevalent in the isolation of minority groups in America. White superiority is the concept of deeming White people as the dominant race compared to other ethnic or racial minority groups. The 2020 U.S. Census Bureau provides information that can be interpreted as how English speaking White people are not just dominating societal expectations, but how they are also numerically dominant. Over 204,00,000 Americans identified as only White, whilst only 41,00,000 identified as Black or African American, and only 2,000,000 identified as American Indian and Alaska Native alone (“Race”). On top of that, approximately 247,000,000 only speak one language at home, and only 74,000,000 speak a language other than English (“Language Spoken at Home”).

This gap from the majority of English and Whiteness in America has caused detrimental effects in the education system due to the prioritization of White, English-speaking students compared to minorities. This has given room for the phenomenon of the ‘White public space’ to take root. The White public space is where the majority of a certain area contains White, English speaking people who have created a space where they feel comfortable to be themselves, whilst the minority groups in that same area feel like outsiders and wrong for not fitting into the societal or linguistic norms. The term ‘White public space’ was popularized by Jane Hill, a professor at the University of Arizona who defines it as:

…intense monitoring of the speech of racialized populations such as Chicanos and Latinos and African Americans for signs of linguistic disorder and the invisibility of almost identical signs in the speech of Whites, where language mixing, required for the expression of a highly valued type of colloquial persona, takes several forms. (Hill)

The usage of White public space in this article highlights how mock Spanish is used as a form of racial stereotyping against Hispanic communities, but the White public space is seen in all different scenarios, including in the form of institutions that instill education in America. The historical effects of the White public space through assimilation and segregation in educational institutions simultaneously led to the rise of Black Deaf Americans using Black American Sign Language (BASL) and the eradication of most Native American languages and cultures, whilst then creating an environment for BASL to be seen as wrong and incorrect, and has given space for Native Americans to revitalize their ancestral language.

Deaf Residential Schools

The first school for the deaf was founded in 1817 in Hartford, Connecticut, where deaf people were finally able to learn how to communicate using sign language (Power). This is where American Sign Language (ASL) was first taught; as a result, ASL expanded into a variety of sign languages in the United States. Prior to this school opening, deaf students had nowhere to go to gain a form of institutionalized education. The majority of students who began attending the first school for the deaf were White, as this was before the Civil War, and different schools had different policies on accepting Black students. However, after the Civil War, segregated schools throughout the country opened, including schools for the deaf that took in Black deaf students. During the same period, those White segregated deaf institutions were separating from the manualistic approach to teaching deaf students, which involves teaching deaf students signed language and allowing them to use their hands to communicate (Lucas). Consequently, the use of oralism in those segregated White deaf institutions became a trend that followed throughout the mid-1800s up until the late 1900s. The idea was that

A signing-based education was making deaf people more Deaf, oralists believed. They were using a communication system that visibly marked them as abnormal and handicapped people. Oralists were out to change all of that; as they understood it, they were on a quest to integrate deaf people into the normal (and hearing) mainstream. (Edwards 11).

Thus Oralists believed that deaf people needed to assimilate into regular society rather than staying in what they thought was a ‘bubble’ compared to the rest of the country because they used a different language.

The trend of language subordination towards standard English was widely spread throughout the United States and, according to Edwards, author of the book Words Made Flesh: Nineteenth-Century Deaf Education and the Growth of Deaf Culture, “over 80 percent of deaf children were taught by the oral method, without any sign language” (Edwards 11). This data mostly originates from segregated White and deaf institutions because many Black and deaf institutions – or even Black departments of deaf schools – were generally ignored and not discussed by White institutions. This reinforces that the idea of the White public space, where White English is considered superior and should be the ‘standard’, leads to language groups losing their identity and community. The act of oralism for deaf people is incredibly isolating as they are unable to communicate freely or thrive in environments with peers or strangers. Another interesting point that Edwards makes is that “speech skills were meant to allow the deaf to abandon the Deaf world entirely. The power of speech would free deaf people from the supposedly narrow constraints of the Deaf community” (Edwards 11). This is from the perspective of oralists in this time-period, and it goes to show just how those people were thinking and how they viewed themselves as superior compared to other kinds of language groups, which coincides with the idea of the White public space.

Black ASL

Without the push from the White public space to assimilate, Black and deaf students who were only allowed to attend Black only deaf institutions developed a more standardized version of ASL compared to the White variety (Lucas). This was because of the encouragement of manualism in classrooms of the segregated residential schools, which led to Black students actually preserving American Sign Language, in contrast with White and deaf institutions. Ceil Lucas, an American Linguist who has written many articles about Black American Sign Language, has shown that one of the big distinguishing factors between Black and White ASL is the use of signs being in citation form (+cf), which is “the standard form found in ASL dictionaries and taught in ASL classes” (Lucas). As this continued to grow and develop as a dialect of American Sign Language, it developed into what is now known as Black ASL.

When talking about the differences of Black ASL to mainstream ASL in the documentary, “Signing Black in America”, one of the deaf speakers signed that “people who use Black ASL, typically show more facial expressions, I can see their, let’s say their attitude. Or their personality, their swag. I can also see their body language and how they express what they want to say” (“Signing Black in America” 1:09-1:23). Facial expressions and how signs are expressed through the body incorporate more than just signing through hand movement. This is a key difference from White ASL, which typically uses less facial expressions or body movements. Additionally, Lucas stated that “Black signers are more likely than their White counterparts to use the two-handed variant of signs, the traditional +cf form” (Lucas). This is another important distinction from White ASL because the act of using one hand to sign something that has traditionally needed two hands to sign is a product of the White public space imposing the use of oralism. This continues to impact deaf communities, even after most deaf schools reverted back to the usage of ASL. Another example from the article “Segregation and Desegregation of the Southern Schools for the Deaf: The Relationship between Language Policy and Dialect Development” is that “Black signers studied in McCaskill et al. 2020 [2011] used markedly less mouthing of English words and phrases than the White signers did, as well as a larger signing space, and they had a tendency to repeat the same sign within a sentence” (Lucas). This leads to the notion that, if these White deaf schools weren’t forced to assimilate towards the White public space and foster the inclusion of oralism in their teachings, perhaps the norm for all signers who used ASL would have less differentiations between Black and White signers.

Codeswitching

Even though BASL seems to be positively viewed by those in the deaf and Black community, outside of their community, not everyone agrees or feels comfortable with how Black signers express themselves. In “Signing Black in America” one of the deaf signers expressed their frustration with how they are perceived by non-Black signers. “‘Whoa, calm down, you don’t need to get an attitude with me!” And I’ll be like, “No, that’s how I express myself! I’m just saying – maybe you express yourself differently, but there’s nothing wrong with that, you know?’” (“Signing Black in America” 18:03-18:12). This misunderstanding between Black signers and non-Black signers has inevitably led to codeswitching, which is when Black signers switch to a more “White” way of signing rather than their own in order to fit in more or make the other party more comfortable. In social settings, many groups of people codeswitch; whether they are talking to their parents or their teachers, many people will try to sound like the authority figure that they are speaking to. However, this has led to society viewing White people who speak only English as the authority figures, therefore codeswitching is more likely to happen in interactions between White and deaf people of color. Another example of this is seen in the documentary, where one of the signers says,

With my Black students, I had to explain how academic ASL should be signed. I didn’t want to criticize their signing, which is appropriate in a social setting. That’s my dilemma. I told them that their signing was fine, but for the academic setting they had to switch it to a more formal way. (“Signing Black in America” 18:57-19:15)

This “switch” pushes down usage of Black ASL to make space for White ASL in the academic setting and even in some social settings, which results in Black signers feeling that their signing is wrong and it could even lead to them feeling like they need to fully assimilate to be taken seriously.

Codeswitching happens in all types of communities where people feel the need to assimilate or “fit in” in order to be liked. In an article talking about the effects of speaking Spanish in spaces where White people are the majority, Danny Martinez writes that “where Whiteness is normalized and practices outside of imagined and normalized White practices are treated as different, deficient, and deviant” (Martinez). This furthers the idea that all minority groups face this issue of being in these White public spaces and feeling stigmatized towards using their own language in public. Martinez also talks about how using another language besides English in the classroom can be deemed as unnecessary or unwanted by their English speaking counterparts, which can lead to harassment or violence. (Martinez). This creates the fear that White people view non-White people as less than and feel the need to categorize them in a certain way to fit into a box that they see as a one-size fits all. Especially from an education standpoint, the standardized way of speaking English and how it is treated as the only acceptable way of communicating is very debilitating for many students in America. The White public space has negatively impacted many minority groups in the deaf community throughout history, but the same can also be said for the Native American speaking community, who have long endured hardship due to the White public space suppressing their language.

Native American Boarding Schools

In the late 1870s, the US government established many Native American boarding schools for K-12 children to be taught English as their only allowed language (Gregg). This is very similar to how White and Black deaf students were being forced to follow oralism and abandon American Sign Language. These schools forced Native American children to be isolated from the rest of their community and pushed to learn how they are ‘supposed’ to talk and act according to the rest of society. In the documentary called “Our Spirits Don’t Speak English” they mention the famous quote by Richard Henry Pratt who once said in a speech, “Kill the Indian and save the man” (Richie 26:45-26:48). This encapsulates this idea again of the White public space dominating the education systems in America, since multiple groups of White English speakers feel as if it’s their duty to ‘fix the broken’.

In 1879, Pratt founded the first U.S. Native American boarding school, called the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, located in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where a former military post used to stand (Richie 26:12-26:27). The documentary stated that

He began to map out the notion of educating Indians to be like Whites. The place for American Indians would not be to become doctors and lawyers, but rather that Indians could become tradespeople and domestics. So that’s more what he thought. It would be good to have an Indian school where you cut off children from their cultural backgrounds and allowed them to learn the White culture (Richie 23:34-24:02).

Notice how in Pratt’s ideas for what Native Americans are capable of doing career-wise, he still views them as lesser. He sees that they will never reach the same education or equality as the White man, furthering this idea of White superiority. More schools were developed as time passed, but the goal of teaching Native Americans Christianity and White ideals whilst trying to ‘train the Indian’ out of them still remained. However, in their goals for education, it was stated that the students would only be taught “a very rudimentary, a very elementary English education” (Richie 27:54-28:03). Pratt’s thoughts that Native Americans don’t need to get prestigious jobs shows that he thinks they need to be integrated into society and they are not yet fully a part of society.

Later on, 25 more schools were established in the West, bringing with them the same principles as the Carlisle School (Richie 27:22-27:28). This type of isolated teaching towards Native American children was the cause for them losing their culture and even their own names from the impact of these boarding schools and the harsh infringement of their first language. “They lost their languages. Their clothes were taken away from them. All the medicine that they had brought with them, the foods that they had brought with them, that was put aside as inferior and not to be used at the school” (Richie 32:00-32:20). Saying that someone is inferior to another and someone giving themselves the authority to make decisions for groups they see as inferior is exactly what the White public space represents.

Native American Language Revitalization

From the push of the American Indian Movement in the 1960s, Native people in the United States were beginning to demand equal rights and autonomy in their own education systems, which subsequently led to the Indian Self-Determination and Educational Assistance Act to be passed by Congress in 1975 (Hinton & Meek 375). This allowed for Native Americans to finally gain control over their schools, ignoring the push to fully assimilate into the White public space and beginning the process of teaching both English and their own languages in schools. The article “Language Revitalization in Indigenous North America” mentions that “symbolically, it was very meaningful to make Indigenous languages central to the same education system that had played such a big role in oppressing them” (Hinton & Meek 375). Hinton and Meek highlight some immersion schools throughout the country that were promoting this usage of bilingualism in order to preserve the primary language while also including English to keep to the mainstream society. These included the Mohawk immersion schools of Ontario and New York, the Blackfeet immersion school in Montana, and the Chinook Jargon immersion preschool and kindergarten in Grande Ronde.

However, for some uncommonly spoken native languages, schools were having trouble finding qualified teachers that could teach that language in the classroom. The discovered solution was to change state regulations on how speakers of said languages can “obtain ‘eminence credentials,’” which would allow them to teach due to their unique background and knowledge of an endangered language (Hinton & Meek 377). However, some issues that have arisen is that the students’ native language is only being used at home and in school; their native language needs to be pushed into broader society for it to really be a revitalization for a community (Hinton & Meek 379).

Conclusion

The push towards an English-only society in the United States has led to negative impacts on minority groups, and shows how, without the pressure of assimilating into White society, minority groups can evolve their own culture and create their own language. The racialized segregation of the deaf residential schools led to the birth of Black American Sign Language, which has allowed Black deaf signers to find a sense of identity in how they sign; yet they still deal with feeling the need to codeswitch to fit into the White public space. Similarly, many Native Americans who were forced into boarding schools that tried to repress their native culture are now regaining power by creating bilingual schools to help revitalize their languages, while also still teaching English as a main language. Those groups are still struggling with feeling like they need to fit into this White-centered society that has been curated over hundreds of years, and there is much work to be done to change the narrative that White English is the “correct” version of English.

Works Cited

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