“Who Created These Rules?”: Narrative Accounts of Two First Generation Black African Immigrant Students with Dis/Ability Labels

Abstract

The scholars in Disability Studies in Education (DSE) have explored critical connections between race, disability, and other markers of identity. This article specifically explores narrative accounts of two first generation Black African immigrant students’ educational navigation and their English as Second Language (ESL) and special education experiences. A pluralistic theoretical approach including Disability Critical Race Studies (DisCrit) and Ethnic Racial Identity (ERI) Formation framework is employed. The author proposes a disability-integrated ERI (D-ERI) framework. Some important findings from participant narratives suggest their awareness of the ESL as a formalized system leading to special education placement, and their acts of resistance against the deficit perceptions about their intersectional ethnic-racial identities in U.S. schools.

Disclosure statement

The author reports there are no competing conflicts of interests to declare.

Notes

1 “the assigning of values to real or imagined differences, in order to justify the superiority of the native, who is to be perceived white, over that of the non-native, who is perceived to be People and Immigrants of Color, and thereby defend the right of whites, or the natives, to dominance” (Huber et al., 2008, p. 43).

2 I understand that both disability and ability are historically and politically constructed categories in society. My use of slash is to disrupt this social construction which exerts control on the life of people with dis/abilities through this binary construction; including national and international laws and policies (Iqtadar et al., 2021; Ribet, 2011). I further acknowledge that the term is often used in the academy and may not be supported by people with disabilities. They would rather “say the word” for identity and disability pride. For this purpose, I also use the term “disability” or “disabilities” throughout, whenever appropriate.

3 Disability Studies (DS) and Critical Race Theory (CRT) vary in their explanation of disability as a social vs. medical or biological identity. While scholars in DS understand disability as a social and political identity, CRT scholarship conceives disability as a biological category (Erevelles & Minear, 2010). Similarly, scholarship in DS for a long time, painted the field as what Bell (2006) termed a white disability studies. Annamma et al. (2013) developed a framework of DisCrit to both address race and racism within the field of DS, and highlight CRT scholars’ failure to focus disability and ableism within their framework.

4 From a sociocultural perspective, identity formation is an individual’s complex and emerging sense of self, mediated by the social, cultural, and historical processes, and is continually produced in and by the dialectical social relationship and interaction with the world (Holland et al., 1998).

5 all names of people and places are pseudonyms in accordance with institutional review board approval.