Using Visual Arts as a Proxy for Language: Addressing the Marginalization of Linguistic Minority Parents

Abstract

This article discusses a school-wide implementation of an arts-based initiative to address the alienation experienced by linguistic minority parents. In order to assuage the prevalent, although unintentional, practices of marginalization, a group of students and teachers established a platform that enabled shared discourse among minority and mainstream parents. Benefits could be discerned on multiple levels and were attained in incremental stages during the months and years following the implementation. The deliberately structured engagement made way for a school-wide reconsideration of policies and procedures, which led to broader and impassioned participation of all parents. The article concludes by discussing the implications of grass root endeavors, such as the arts-based initiative discussed below, in mitigating the structures of inequities within individual school systems that, in effect, replicate the social injustice seen outside of schools.

Notes

1. The names of students, parents, teachers, and the school used in this article are pseudonyms.

2. Information obtained from school district office.

3. The LMPs were surveyed through a mix of written and oral methods in their native languages.

4. Parents’ responses were collected through multiple ways: Some parents used the written form; others conveyed responses to their children, a teacher, or volunteer. Everyone was encouraged to communicate in the language that was most comfortable for them. One thing is critical to note: Even though parents spoke many languages at home, their children did not demonstrate comparable proficiencies in the families’ heritage languages.