Section 1: Special Issue

Soy porque Somos: Black Spanish Teachers Developing Hemispheric Black Language Pedagogies

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Abstract

This article explores the ways in which U.S.-based Spanish language teachers who are racialized as Black, develop and navigate Critical Race Pedagogies (Anya, 2020) in order to resist linguistic pushout (Austin, 2022) and confront the racializing myths that serve to erase Afrodiasporic and Indigenous (hi)stories from Spanish language curricula. Specifically, the article investigates the supports, challenges, and recommendations of eight Black Spanish educators inclusive of authors one and two. The interviews elicited from the teachers most notably illuminated a shared experience of navigating academic institutions that required a defense of Blackness in order to restore balance to the classroom and to overarchingly antiBlack educational systems. Informed by linguistic and cultural expertise within themselves, their homes and communities, participants nurtured their defense of Blackness through Black-Self Determination or moves toward a full recognition of Black humanity (Wynter, 2003) in the Spanish classroom. The authors argue that a sense of harmony and truth which predates Greco-Roman notions of democracy and prizes order and justice, what Kemetic societies referred to as Maat (Obenga, 2004), was constantly being pursued through these teachers’ efforts. Through cultivating Black historicity, cross-ethnic solidarities and Ubuntu (the essence of humanity and compassion [Makalela, 2018]), alongside a steadfast resistance to negative stereotypes of Black lifeways,  the teachers experiences revealed approaches toward the development of what Clemons (2021a) calls Hemispheric Black Language Pedagogies which highlight Afrodiasporic presence and histories, to insist upon student success using pedagogical, curricular, and policy choices in the varying educational contexts.

Keywords: Black language learners, Spanish Language Education, Black Language Pedagogies, Afrodiaspora

How to Cite:

Clemons, A. & Austin, T., (2024) “Soy porque Somos: Black Spanish Teachers Developing Hemispheric Black Language Pedagogies”, Critical Multilingualism Studies 11(2), 52-77.