This beautifully written, lyrical piece speaks to the tragedy of language erasure that is part and parcel to the assimilation process. Internalized forms of oppression causes us to similarly subscribe to such harmful ideologies. It falls on the side of the importance of challenging these language ideologies that assume a false sense of purity, and thusly dominance. No language is pure. Notwithstanding policies that are about linguistic erasure (a.k.a. "assimilation") that assume superiority, no language is ever the "right one" to the exclusion of any other.
-Angela Valenzuela
Author Daniel
Jose Older speaks during the "Audio Publishers Association" panel at
the BookExpo 2017 at Javits Center in New York City, on June 2, 2017.
John
Lamparski—Getty Images
February 14, 2019
