Why the term “BIPOC” is so complicated, explained by linguists by Constance Grady

The term, "BIPOC," meaning Black Indigenous People of Color, is an interesting term. I was part of a community meeting on Zoom here in Austin several months ago where the term was first heard by members of the Austin Latino Coalition, one of the primary groups that has been spearheading our community's struggle against COVID on the ground. As I recall, in question was a city document about this group's efforts that failed to use either the words, "Hispanic" or "Latino," that not only perplexed members of the community but angered them as a deep sense of erasure became the overriding sentiment.

In the chat, I was trying to say that it could be a progressive term if Latinas and Latinos see themselves as Indigenous, and thusly included. I consider myself as Indigenous, even if I'm also Latina, Chicana, Tejana, and Mexican American, depending on the context. 

I remember conjecturing that the term, BIPOC, may have been reinforced by the racial justice movement that in 2020 was centered in Minnesota in the wake of the George Floyd murder and how that area of the country is definitely a Black and Indigenous space. (Note: That's still a hypothesis.)

Nothing I posted seemed to matter, making me realize anew the importance of not just language, but context. In this context, it felt like the city report intentionally sought to exclude the work of this coalition because it failed to acknowledge them directly, at least either as Hispanic or Latino, particularly since the term, "Latino," is in the actual name of the group.

The short of it is that we should be thoughtful of language, sensitive to context, and ever-mindful of, and respectful toward, what people want to be called. After all, what we might think of as progressive, another may experience as an imposition. 

Thanks to Education Policy and Planning doctoral student, Maria del Carmen Unda, for sharing.

-Angela Valenzuela

Why the term “BIPOC” is so complicated, 

explained by linguists

There is no “one size fits all” language when it comes to talking about race.

By Constance Grady@constancegrady  Jun 30, 2020, 9:10am EDT

“Y’all know where the term ‘women of color’ came from?” asked Loretta Ross, the co-founder of SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, at a reproductive justice training hosted by the Western States Center in 2011.

The moment was documented on video, in a clip that has traveled the internet with increasing speed since the George Floyd protests all across the US reawakened a national conversation about race and racism. After posing her rhetorical question to the audience, Ross went on to describe the alliance formed between different minority women’s groups at the 1977 National Women’s Conference in Houston.

“It was in those negotiations in Houston that the term ‘women of color’ was created,” Ross said. “It is a solidarity definition, a commitment to work in collaboration with other oppressed women of color who have been minoritized.”

But Ross also explained that in the decades since those minority women’s groups came together to form their alliance, the term “women of color” has been flattened and lost its political meaning. “Unfortunately, so many times people of color hear the term ‘people of color’ from other white people that they think white people created it,” she said, “instead of understanding that we self-made ourselves. This is a term that has a lot of power for us. But we’ve done a poor-ass job of communicating that history so that people understand that power.”

The slippage Ross discussed in 2011 is part of a familiar pattern when it comes to the language we use to talk about political oppression based on identity. An in-group will develop a new label for itself as part of a way of talking about the experiences members of that group hold in common. And then out-groups will begin using that language in a flat, unspecific way. (Think about the term “sexual harassment,” created to discuss a violent abuse of power, which became bowdlerized over the decades.) They rob the language of its political power.

This flattening does not necessarily stem from an active desire to do harm. Often, it’s rooted in a desire to be seen as “not racist” or, more broadly, as one of “the good guys.” Anxious and indiscriminate and mostly white liberal speakers vaguely grasp that old terms like “African American,” “minority,” and “diverse” are outdated, and that new terms like “people of color” and “BIPOC” are in. And so they begin to slot in the new terms for the old without thinking too much about how the new terms are different.

“There’s this anxiety over saying the wrong thing,” says deandre miles-hercules, a PhD linguistics student who focuses on sociocultural linguistic research on race, gender, and sexuality. “And so instead of maybe doing a little research, understanding the history and the different semantic valences of a particular term to decide for yourself, or to understand the appropriateness of a use in a particular context, people generally go, ‘Tell me the word, and I will use the word.’ They’re not interested in learning things about the history of the term, or the context in which it’s appropriate.”

But miles-hercules argues that while people may not intend harm when they use identity labels inaccurately, their inaccuracy is still harmful. “People tune in to this, ‘What is the word? Do I call you African American? Do I call you Black? What is the word that people are preferring these days? I know I can’t call you Negro anymore! So just tell me the word so I can use it and we can go on from there,’” they say. “But that lacks in nuance. And that lack of nuance is a violence.”

What It Means to Be ‘Latinx,’ and What That Means for America by Julian Castro

So many people are exploring not solely "Latinx identity," per se, but also what it actually means.  Here, Julian Castro reviews a book on the topic by Dr. Ed Morales titled, Latinx: The New Force in American Politics and Culture.

Personally, I like the gender neutral part of the expression and also that it's a millennial development and I really love my millennial students and have two millennial children of my own.

The "Latin" part of the word is the rub for me as it smacks of assimilation as it suggests that we're "Latin," from Europe when we're not.  Even if our genes travelled all of the world, our people did not.  

Moreover, in some situations, "Latinx" can inadvertently participate in the erasure of history.  What comes to mind, in this regard, is the establishment of the "Chicana Caucus" at the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies," where some wanted to change the name to the "Latinx Caucus" a few years ago.  This put the caucus in an interesting situation due to its long history of progressive politics, but pushed back on this specific proposal in order to preserve the history of the caucus.

I'm confident that this kind of situation is playing out across many different contexts and is certainly something that must get discussed and negotiated.

That said, what I do like of Castro's reading Morales’ analysis of Latinx identity is that the x is variable, beyond the gender neutrality it clearly represents.  As an umbrella term, it conveys mestizaje, hybridity, and a spectrum of identity.  

My sense of where this will all go at least with respect to everyday social relations is in the direction of "situational ethnicity" where depending on the context, one's ethnic identity either gets displayed or concealed.  In some contexts, Latinx makes sense.  In others, it won't.

I conclude by citing another important work by political scientist Dr. Cristina Beltran, author of the book, The Trouble with Unity: Latino Politics and the Creation of Identity.  I think she nails it when she offers the following:

"Latino," like the category "women," should be reconceived as a site of permanent political contestation. 

This is a reasonable conclusion to draw and this is a good problem to have.  Thanks to Paul Saldaña for sharing.

Angela Valenzuela
c/s

What It Means to Be ‘Latinx,’ and What That Means for America

A crowd at the 2018 Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York City.CreditBebeto Matthews/Associated Press

Image

By Julian Castro

• Nov. 14, 2018

LATINX
The New Force in American Politics and Culture

By Ed Morales 368 pp. Verso. $24.95.

A crowd at the 2018 Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York City.CreditCreditBebeto Matthews/Associated Press

In September, just in time for Hispanic Heritage Month, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary recognized the word “Latinx,” which it defines as “of, relating to or marked by Latin American heritage — used as a gender-neutral alternative to Latino or Latina.” I was happy to see the addition, and also more than a little amused. I thought back to my freshman year of college in 1992. As I sat in a computer room in my dorm working away on an early Macintosh, a red squiggly line immediately appeared underneath the word “Chicano” after I typed it into the paper I was writing about my family’s background. When I hit the spell check to see what the problem was, Microsoft Word had a suggestion: Chicago. “You don’t even exist,” popped into my head. Unfortunately, this wasn’t a new experience. Years earlier, in middle school, I’d been asked to fill out a form that included a question about my background. There were three options to choose from: black, white or other. “Well, I’m not black or white,” I remember thinking, pencil in hand, “but I don’t like the sound of ‘other.’” I left it blank.

For many Latinos, stories like these are all too familiar. In “Latinx: The New Force in American Politics and Culture,” Ed Morales fills in that blank as well as the long, painful, complex and intersectional struggle for identity that has shaped America’s Latino community. As Morales notes, Latinx is just the latest in a series of terms, from Hispanic to Latino/a and even Latin@, employed to refer to individuals of Latin American heritage in an inclusive way.

Reading Morales’s dissection of Latinx identity formation, however, one begins to believe that the x in “Latinx” is more than just a means of providing gender-neutrality. As in algebra, the x is variable. How a Latino or Latina perceives himself or herself — and how he or she is perceived by others — often depends on context. Unhappy with the binary notion of race popular in the United States, Morales offers the concept of mestizaje, or hybridity, that encompasses a spectrum of identity, the result of hundreds of years of intermixing among African, European and indigenous peoples in Mexico, Latin America and the Caribbean. Latinos can be black, white, brown or anything in between. Skin color, national origin, whether one lives in the mainland United States or outside of it, and one’s ability to speak Spanish, not to mention gender and sexual orientation, all play a role in one’s self-concept.

Morales, an adjunct faculty member at Columbia University who describes his own identity as that of a “racialized person living in a U.S. megacity, who has a somewhat ambiguous phenotypical appearance,” proves refreshingly introspective, weaving enough personal biography into the book to pull the work back from veering too far into inaccessible academic jargon. “In my own extended family, there is generally a disdain for blackness,” he writes, and tells of his father, who “traded on Anglo-Americans’ perceptions of his whiteness if it helped him in financial or social transactions, yet sought to avoid complete identification with whiteness when it came to his ‘real’ identity.”

According to the 2010 census, there were 55 million Latinos in the United States, and they made up 23 percent of Americans under the age of 18. Today, although Asian-Americans are now growing more quickly in percentage terms, Latinos are still growing fastest numerically. That means the destiny of the United States and the destiny of the Latino community are powerfully intertwined.

“The American identity will never be fixed and final; it will always be in the making,” Arthur Schlesinger Jr. wrote a quarter century ago in “The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society.” While Schlesinger’s observation may be true, it is much easier asserted than accepted.

With his boogeyman approach to electoral politics, Donald Trump has deftly exploited anxieties about the impact of America’s changing demographics on our national identity, and no group has been more vilified by Trump for political purposes than Latinos. After declaring in his announcement speech that Mexico was sending rapists and drug runners to our country, months later Trump dismissed questions about the legitimacy of fraud claims against Trump University by insisting that the American-born judge of Mexican descent who was presiding over the case could not do his job right because “he’s Mexican!” His administration has been even worse, cruelly separating families apprehended at the Southern border, failing to adequately respond to Hurricane Maria and then dismissing the deaths of 3,000 Puerto Ricans as mere fantasy concocted by political opponents.

It is no surprise, then, that the Latino community is widely misperceived and is especially in need today of voices to defend and humanize it. In this way, “Latinx” couldn’t be timelier. For one thing, Morales shatters Americans’ view of the community as monolithic. Although nearly two-thirds of Latinos claim Mexican heritage, Puerto Ricans, Cubans and a growing community of Latinos from Central and South America each have unique cultural and political experiences in the United States.

Morales explores these to varying degrees, and, importantly, makes clear that Latinos have been integral to America’s progress for generations, even as they have grappled with relative invisibility, outright rejection of their place in America and internal struggles about their own identity. He reminds us that it was Gonzalo and Felícitas Méndez, the Mexican-born father and Puerto Rican mother of daughter Sylvia Mendez, who challenged California’s separate and unequal “Mexican schools,” winning an appellate court victory in 1946 that paved the way for the Supreme Court’s opinion in Brown v. Board of Education that struck down racial segregation in schools eight years later.

Morales’s writing can be hyperbolic at times. “For an American economy that has been largely stagnant, the opening of Cuba is a last-ditch opportunity to stave off looming worldwide economic disaster,” he writes of President Obama’s efforts to open up Cuba to American investment. Still, the book’s deep dive into the crosscurrents of Latinx identity is a powerful reminder that, as Americans wrestle with questions about who is and who is not “American” — and, indeed, questions about what it means to be an American in the 21st century — the nation can benefit immensely from the robust inclusion and understanding of a community that has spent generations grappling with nearly every facet of its own identity.

AISD Board Session on Ethnic Studies Tomorrow 12-12-16

Dear Blog Readers:

I write to invite you to tomorrow’s AISD Board working session that includes secondary,

ethnic studies for the district as a topic.  This is happening largely because of AISD Board Member Paul Saldaña’s leadership—but others, as well, including Board Member Ted Gordon, Superintendent Paul Cruz, and Associate Superintendent Edmund Oropez.  Board meetings are held at the Carruth Administration Complex (CAC) located at 1111 West 6th Street, Room B-100, Austin, Texas, 78703.  I plan to get there at 7PM. You can park for free in the district’s underground parking garage off of 6^th St. and Baylor St.

Some background context is the UT Professor and Curriculum and Instruction Department Chair Dr. Cinthia Salinas and I sit currently on the AISD Ethnic Studies Curriculum committee.  Our team has worked hard over the last 6 weeks to draft specific, research-based recommendations for an Ethnic Studies course that will be made public tomorrow.

I will also be given a few minutes to share what we are doing locally in the context of Academia Cuauhtli, our Saturday Academy that you can learn about in greater detail from the following publication titled, Academia Cuauhtli and the Eagle: "Danza Mexica" and the Epistemology of the Circle, as well as from this two-minute, KLRU-PBS documentary titled, Academia Cuauhtli Works to Bridge History with Language.  I also plan to address the research evidence related to Ethnic Studies.

The board will not take testimony.  It will only hear from our committee.  

Texas State Board of Education Member Georgina Cecilia Pérez plans to be present.

Here are the specifics:

9. ETHNIC STUDIES (Discussion) - 7:25 PM (60 Minutes)

9.1 Ethnic Studies (Discussion)

Agenda Item Details

Meeting   Dec 12, 2016 - Board Work Session   Category   ETHNIC STUDIES (Discussion) - 7:25 PM (60 Minutes)   Subject   Ethnic Studies (Discussion)   Access   Public   Type   Work Session Presentation/Discussion  

RECOMMENDATION:

None, this item is for discussion only.

ADMINISTRATIVE CONSIDERATIONS:

Austin ISD will pilot the Ethnic Studies course at Anderson, Akins, Austin, LBJ Early College, Reagan Early College, and Travis High Schools during school year 2017-2018 and may implement the course at all high school campuses during school year 2018-2019. The course will be a weighted credit under Special Topics in Social Studies. The course is divided into parts 1A and 1B. Students can earn 0.5 credit for each part. Students must take course 1A to take course 1B.

An Ethnic Studies course uses critical historical inquiry to examine the languages, family structures, spiritual traditions, economic and social issues, political aspirations, and values of diverse groups within the United States. The course has the potential to reduce drop-out rates and provide a more inclusive and engaging academic experience for students, especially those who are at-risk.  An Ethnic Studies course can also influence college enrollment as increasing numbers of students experience academic success derived from an authentic connection to the curriculum.

The following commitment, strategy and key action of the AISD 2015-2020 Strategic Plan are being addressed:

Commitment 1: Achieve excellence by delivering a high-quality education to every student

Strategy 1.3: We will provide services and supports for every student on every campus.

Key Action Step a: Each student will be actively engaged in learning and is connected to the school and broader community.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION:

Austin ISD convened an innovation design team of AISD staff and external partners to develop recommendations to prepare and launch an Ethnic Studies course. The team identified key content and instructional components, drafted a course description, and proposed coding and credit recommendations.  

Other large districts in Texas, like Houston ISD, offer some type of Cultural Studies course such as Mexican American History or African American History. Additionally, large urban districts in California, such as San Francisco Unified, offer an Ethnic Studies class as an elective.

Austin ISD considers cultural proficiency as one of the six “power skills” necessary for student success. The District currently provides cultural specific opportunities for elementary and secondary students. The Social Studies curriculum team worked with partners to develop Tejano Monument lessons for grades K-12. Additionally, the district partnered with a with professors from the University of Texas and the Mexican American Cultural Center to launch the Cuauhtli Academy/Academia Cuauhtli language and revitalization project in 2015 for grade 4 students from Metz, Sanchez, and Zavala elementary schools. Five courses are currently being offered at the secondary level including Social Justice at Anderson High School, African American History, Asian Studies, and Latin American Studies at Austin High School, and Holocaust and Humanity at the Liberal Arts and Science Academy.

CONTACT PERSON:

Dr. Lisa Goodnow, Executive Director for Academics and Social Emotional Learning  E-mail:  Dr. Lisa Goodnow lisa.goodnow@austinisd.org.

Very exciting, of course!  A great showing would help convince the AISD Board Members that this is something valued by our community. 

If you are unable to attend, the session will be broadcast live on AISD Ch. 22 and online at https://www.austinisd.org/board/webcasts

Angela Valenzuela
c/s

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