The Structural Violence Experienced by ESL Students

By Anonymous / Fall 2019

Imagine been 15 years old, excited for the next year of school,  excited for all the quinceañeras parties that will be  happening, excited to go to the school you studied hard to get in  and then from nowhere your parents telling you that you will be moving to another country where first, the language they speak is different, and secondly, you have to adapt to a new country and make new friends. In a course of less than a week we moved from Mexico to the United States. Among all this transition I saw myself at times excited but confused. When I went to enroll in high school, I took an English exam just for the school to know my level of English. Long story short I was placed in this program called ESL (English as Second Language) which is intended to be a transition for students into a new country and to learn English, and to improve English skills. The program is based on 4 levels of English. For example, as a freshman student you will be place on level one and then on sophomore you will placed on second level and so on, and if you learn faster or not you can be moved either up or down. 

It is normal to see people who speak Spanish in school, so in that matter I didn’t feel like an outsider at first.  Most of those students don’t have to go through ESL programs because they manage English perfectly. Being a Spanish speaker student in an ESL program is different and indeed difficult. You feel like no one takes you seriously or that your ideas are worthless. Like if you were just taking up space and using a seat that could be taken by other smarter and English speaker student. At times you would wish to never have left your country. You may find yourself blaming your parents and be angry at everyone all day long. Every day of school was unexpected, there were good and bad days. One of the struggles I faced was the fact that my first year of school my counselor didn’t speak Spanish. Another struggle was that there was this big presentation for career paths, and ESL students did not get the memo, basically the school “forgot” to invite us. We found out about it because one of my teachers talked to us about it. Or what about segregation when important test needed to be taken, ESL classes would be placed in a different room whereas regular students would be place all together in the auditorium, and it wasn’t just for this kind of activities, it was for everything. The structural violence of the system was creating the feeling of impostor syndrome in students.

Someone who has lived all their life here in the United States do not know the magnitude of the struggles Spanish speakers face daily. The fact that we have to adapt to society is difficult, but it is more difficult when there are systems that make this process harder.  Let’s note that I was never exposed to the educational system here in the United States before, so everything was new for me. I thought every inconsistent situation that I encountered with was normal. We are taught that education is the most influential factor for advancement and progress of not only individuals themselves but for societies and countries as a whole. It is considered to be a process intended to teach all the individuals that make up the country to develop a successful working life and at the same time be able to meet their own needs. The importance of education in my perspective lies in being better every day in all aspects of someone's life, from small to bigger things. But how all these things I just mention can be effective if the educational system clings to the idea of staying the same. This a multicultural and multilingual country where every person has different needs that apparently the school system is not up to it. Where the fact of public and equal education for all is left when there are factors that focuses on making non-English speakers feel less than these who are Anglo-American.

In my high school years, after being attending school for a year, I started to notice some inconsistencies of how Spanish speakers in ESL classes were seen and treated. We all faced stigma stipulated from teachers, biases within the system, and lack of opportunities for students in the program versus students attending regular classes.

There are many factors which lead to the inequalities between these non-English speakers and English speakers. History is a major contributor to how education is scattered. In the past times, education was only given to Anglo-American people (majority group) whereas the minority groups did not have the option to study. If we talk about what minority groups were the last to community to access education Mexicans are one of them.  Sadly, this ideology that minority classes are less important is still predominant nowadays.

Takaki in his book “A Different Mirror” describes how United States kind of stole Mexican Land, in a different perspective of what it is taught in schools. Every story has two sides and I have studied both. Mexico’s history of how they lost the land is slightly different than what is told here. Takaki in Chapter 7 Foreigners in Their Native Land does a great job of trying to describe an in between of both stories. He mentions how Mexicans after losing the war started to feel strangers in their own land once that their language, culture, life, land, laws were deteriorating by how Anglo-Americans began to take possession of this land, making Mexicans become minority groups by depriving them of what was once theirs. The treaty signed between Mexico and United States after war stipulated that Mexicans would be able to maintain their life, but as time passed by, government started to build a series of clauses that ended with the purpose of that signed treaty. Mexicans soon started to work for strangers in the lands and mines that once were theirs. They found themselves in a cast of labor system, along with the other minorities groups.

We can realize that since that moment, stigma towards Mexicans began, and has haunted us until these modern days. The stigma ESL students in highs school was built into this treats from the past. These ideas that we’re not smart enough to be taken seriously because we could not express ourselves or that we are introverts because we show ourselves as shy, serious or quiet. We also tend to do not get into argumentative debates or be very talkative. The reason of that is because we are afraid make many mistakes while we talk or afraid that people would make fun of our English. For example, in my case, I sometimes imagine my brain as if I had two switches, one in Spanish and one in English. The switch is in Spanish all day, but when I need to speak English the switch in Spanish turns off and immediately the English turns on, but it takes time to work. So, when I start talking, I start to stutter, and my words don't come out. Once I finish talking and I find myself alone my brain works better and then I regret it. It is not in me, it just happens.

Moreover, this whole situation, it is just like the old days when Mexicans could not communicate in English in a country where Spanish was once the main language. The frustration they must have felt, not being able to communicate with the people they worked for, to do not know if they were doing good or bad because they could not understand this new language or probably if they tried to speak English, the people made fun of them r if they tried to talk up they would just be ignored, and that is exactly what happens with ESL students nowadays.

Another point that is important to be touched that is created in schools for ESL students is segregation. It rises up by the idea that Anglo-Americans pretends that minority groups should adapt to their norms instead of creating this circle of integration, where all can spend time in as an inclusive and multicultural society helping each other to meet our needs where we all can achieve our own success. This discriminatory issue ESL student experience in school is like going back in time, just represented in a different way. The history in United States about segregation mainly towards African Americans, and later on to other minorities groups is one of the most polemical and unhuman things created around the nineteenth century.

The imbalance of the opportunities presented to Anglo-American student’s vs ESL students is notable. Even though we live in a democratic country, where public school should be equally distributed as a solemnly right for any individual in which the state should provide the right equipment for all students to be able to have access to the education constitutionally protected, the system accounts for certain lacks of opportunities. For example, Anglo-American where provided with counselors who speak the same language giving them advice about community Colleges and Colleges. In contrast, ESL students had to accept the fact that there were not Spanish speakers’ counselors making it harder for us to communicate and be understood, also in my experience I was never asked about my future education and they never either took the time to show me Colleges I could potentially get in. The lack of interest in the future of ESL students because the idea that we do not study more after high school or that we don’t have enough money to go to College blinds the system and staff ability to make a change and help the students who needs it more.

The last point of the structural violence presented in high school is that the system is bias. As mentioned in the paragraph above we live in a democracy system, nevertheless, the educational system towards ESL students has different ideologies of how to handle these kinds of programs. One bias is centered in the fact that education should be equal for everyone. When in reality English speakers in schools are treated better, and ESL students are left out, creating this inequality within the school. Another bias is that system created ESL programs a s a way for us to adapt and learn the language, but it seems like the school created this program to keep us separated from creating a multicultural and multilingual community within the school. It seems like the systems is afraid of us takin over, when actually what we just feel belonged.

In general, what I am trying to say in my work is that the obstacles that students in ESL classes experience in this country are serious. Finding yourself in a system whose main purpose is to help you excel in life, in this case it is education, treating you worthless instantly makes you lose faith on yourself making you doubt in your abilities as a student and person. You become skeptical and paranoid that you may never get far in life. But where all those ideas that Spanish speakers in ESL classes should be treated differently came from? Are we less valuable than the Anglo-Americans? Is it just another social structure built by Anglo-American society to remain as majority group?  This actually relates to racial formation. In the article From Racial Formation in the United States Second Edition 1994 Omi and Winant they describe racial formation as a daily experience, as well as “the sociohistorical process by which racial identities are created, lived out, transformed, and destroyed.” Meaning that race and culture plays a big role in society historically and nowadays in the way we are perceived or treated. It has become a “common sense” according to Omi and Winant too. Basically, historically situates racial projects in which human bodies and social structures are represented and organized where the evolution of hegemony perception of how society is organized and ruled occurs through a link between social structure and cultural representation.

David Harvey in his work The Neoliberal State expresses neoliberalism as  a political system whose applications have direct consequences in the economic and in the social structure of the state who adopted it, because its essence is based on capitalism, free trade and control of public power, this philosophical doctrine has had a great impact on the construction of modern countries. This promotes the liberation of the economic and political sector, as well as globalization. This goes hand in hand with education because despite the fact that this is a public right to value for the development of any citizen, it is seen as a consumer good, which therefore has to be seen as a profitable investment. In other words, it can obtain economic benefit from it in advanced education like Colleges which promotes social mobility, which today is seen as a basic need and a symbol of success.

It should be noted that not all the population has the same social status, therefore not everyone is able to pay for a private education, leading to obtaining a public education. And it is here that the concept of hegemony makes sense because our society is based on fierce and excessive competition, so there are sectors that have dominion over others in regard to education. For example, in this essay, Anglo-Americans who speak perfect English have more opportunities, they are given priority above all because they do go to Colleges and pay enormous money for education, so they are seen as an economic investment. Whereas there is this misconception that Spanish speakers and minorities are seen like they may not have a future so why to spend time with us if it would be worthless. These factors mean that, beyond evaluating education as a means of social transformation and development of the person, it qualifies a country and its ability to compete with others getting something in return.

You may ask, then how we can help to overcome these obstacles? Mainly it is important to understand that these issues mentioned above are real, that there are still students going through the unfairness of the system right now. We have growth up with the idea of caring and focusing in ourselves, in achieving our goals no matter what. But what about the people who have not the right resources to fight against a system that we keep on building towards the ignorance? A democratic system that keeps falling into the discrimination on minority groups. It seems like the democratic society does not defend the sovereignty of the community. We seem to be stuck in this bubble where we want change, but we don’t do anything about it. It is our right as individuals to demand equality.

The principal idea to overcome the obstacles is to have empathy, putting yourself in the shoes of another person helps to perceive the picture differently. Love also helps to overcome these obstacles, even though it sounds so cliché, it is real, love move mountains. When you love yourself respect arises by itself, and when these two mixed together you see life different, and there is when you want to start to make a change. Unfortunately, it is not just about values, these big problems accounts for big actions. One thing that can be done is to talk up, to tell your story, and make sure it gets to many other people. For sure there are other people who went or are going through the same inequalities and probably your story will help them rise up and talk up too making the community bigger and bigger for later be able to advocate and fight against the system.

In conclusion, we live in an unfairness world, driven away by personal growth. We have disconnected from the opportunities we have as a society. We have accepted the term democratic as an abstract idea of ​​freedom and equality, where the public well-being has been destroyed and ruled by the wealthy. The educational system is just one small dot of indifference caused by the form of rule in this country. ESL student face daily discrimination in schools. This issue will keep on going if there is not a change in either the system or society. Sometimes Anglo-Americans take for granted the opportunities they are given because they are used to having everything, whereas ESL students tend to take opportunities more seriously because some opportunities are presented once in a while.

Work Cited

Harvey, David. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford University Press, 2005. pp.64-86. Permission to reprinted by Oxford UP-Books US &UK via CC.

Omi, Michael and Winant Howard. “Racial Formation” Racial Formation in the United States (2nd edition). Routledge, 1994. Pp.53-76. Permission to reprint by Taylor & Francis Informa UK LTD Books via CCC.

Takaki, Ronald T. A Different Mirror : a History of Multicultural America., 2nd edition. pp.166- 184. Boston. Little, Brown & Co., 2008.