Negotiating for Meaning Along “Language Borders”: Refugee Families from Burma/Myanmar in a US Public School District

ABSTRACT

How do Burmese refugee families navigate the linguistic and cultural landscapes of US school systems? How do school personnel respond (or not) to these families’ words and needs? The data in this ethnographic study led me to answer these questions by developing a grounded theory of a “language border” (as opposed to “barrier”), along which these families and school personnel negotiate for meaning around education. As a Burmese-language interpreter and participant-observer in family-school interactions, I describe four “landmarks,” or locations of cultural friction, on this “language border”: English and Burmese terms that are dictionary equivalents but carry different implications. The friction between these terms illustrates conflicting and evolving perceptions about schooling, as well as opportunities for new possibilities to emerge. My findings of this “language border” are significant for school personnel serving Burmese refugee families, and reflect issues that other refugee and immigrant groups may encounter in schools.

KEYWORDS:

• Burma/Myanmar
• interpreting and translation
• multilingualism
• refugee
• school-family engagement

Acknowledgements

I am deeply grateful to the participants in my study (parents, students, and school personnel) for allowing me to observe our interactions for research purposes. I would also like to thank two anonymous reviewers for pushing me to clarify my argument and improve this article. Thanks to Laurie Kingsley and Sam von Gillern for their feedback on this article, and to all my colleagues affiliated with the Language and Literacies for Social Transformation doctoral program at the University of Missouri-Columbia, who have helped me think through these ideas.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. The country can be called Burma or Myanmar; I use Burma. I use “Burmese” to refer to the language of the majority ethnic group, the Burmans, and to the nationality.

2. While some researchers use the phrase “refugee background” (Shapiro & McDonald, 2017) because participants no longer identify with this category, my participants often used the Burmese term for “refugee” to identify themselves. They referred to themselves either as from “Burma,” “Myanmar,” or by their ethnonym, depending on whom they were talking to (for instance, they might identify themselves by their ethnonym to another Burmese refugee, but as being from “Burma” to U.S. school personnel). There was no consensus among participants about how they wanted to be addressed, but none objected to the label “Burmese refugees” (for instance, in the consent form).

3. While relatives other than parents were often involved in students’ education, all participants in my research were parents.

4. In a few cases, with large meetings (such as for IEPs), a school staff member had to sub in for someone who was unavailable, so they hadn’t known about the project in advance and had to decide in the moment whether or not to participate. But in all cases the Burmese refugee participants had agreed in advance and the majority of school personnel had also.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rosalie Metro

Rosalie Metro is an anthropologist of education focused on the conflicts that arise around history, identity, and language in the classroom. Myanmar has been a focus of her research since 2001. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Learning, Teaching and Curriculum in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Missouri-Columbia.