Multilingualism as Resistance

On immigrants as teammates & acts of reciprocity

Kelly Sikkema via Unsplash.

A few months ago, one of my children asked me what the word immigrant meant. I am still not sure if they saw it on the news, or read it in one of their books. When I asked why and in what context, the response was murky. I did not want to lose the opportunity to have a discussion by asking too many questions about the origin of the request so I began by saying an immigrant is someone who moves from one country, usually their home/birth country to another place permanently. I then told them how I am a double immigrant, first to Canada and then to the UK but that there are many people who look down on immigrants, use the term in a derogatory way to discriminate against people predominantly because of race and class. I also told them we are only born where we are born by chance.

This was a satisfactory answer for my children and as kids often do, they moved on to something else. But I also wanted to tell my children about how so much of the ideas around immigration come down to fear, greed, an othering of someone who does not look like you, who does not have as much money as you, who does not sound like you or speak a dominant language the same way as you. I wanted to tell them about what it felt like before the Brexit vote all those years ago when many of the people who voted to leave the EU did it because they wanted immigrants to “go back to where they came from.” I wanted to tell them how any time someone says, “immigrants are great but…” they have heard they should fear immigration as it will steal their job or their resources or their money and they do not in fact think immigration is great except when it suits their needs. I wanted to tell them how I once found out a classmate’s mother in elementary school called me “the immigrant”, asking another parent how she could let her daughter play with me.

I wanted to tell them about the amazing immigrants who work for the NHS here in the UK and who have taken care of me so many times in the hospital, especially when my babies were born. I wanted to tell them about the fearless Bishop who asked Trump for mercy a few days ago, asking him to think about all the children of immigrants and migrants who are scared their parents will be taken away and for the LGBTQ+ community. I wanted to tell them about all the horrible things the new president has done only a few days into his presidency on top of all the other awful things he did when he was president last time and how many immigrants and children of immigrants suffered. I wanted to tell them that people rarely know the difference between the terms immigrant and migrant but that meaning does not matter when it is a life or death situation. I wanted to tell them everything but I held it in for now. They will learn soon enough the cruelty of this world. But if I have anything to do with it, they will also know the good.

I am on a number of linguistics mailing list for conferences, seminars, new papers or books, other linguistics-related announcements. I have noticed this week especially many of the themes or topics popping up in my inbox include workshops or seminars on linguistic discrimination, linguistic (in)justice, inclusive linguistic practices. These are all current topics and perhaps it is recency bias that they resonate so much more right now, but it gives me hope every time something pops up in my inbox about how we can work to dismantle linguistic injustice. Small acts with hopefully, big reach.

I hesitated to use the headline “Multilingualism as Resistance” as multilingualism is normal and more than half of the world’s population uses more than one language regularly. It is only in parts of the world monolingualism is still considered a “standard”. It is not. And yet, multilingualism as resistance is the first thing I thought of that I can do every single day to try to make the world a little better. Or, think of it this way: Often it is the people who do not value multilingualism, who believe their dominant language, often their only language is the most important. Immigrants, if they aren’t already multilingual become so by learning the language of their new home. If we pause to think about that learning curve, it is extraordinary and also, ubiquitous.

Earlier this week, my football (soccer) - obsessed child was excited to show me something in one of his books. It was a page about how when football players move clubs, sometimes several times in their career, they do not know the language of their new country. There was an interview on the page with a polyglot Croatian midfielder who knows eight languages. When asked how he learnt so many languages, in addition to growing up in a multilingual environment, he said: “Communication is important in a team and I’ve always wanted to learn the language of the club where I am playing, and also speak to teammates in their home language.”

And this:

“…it is great to be able to speak to people in their mother tongue, especially when they have just arrived at your club. It helps them settle in and feel at home more quickly.”

It helps them to settle in and feel at home more quickly. Imagine if we all thought of immigrants to our country as new teammates, and not only welcomed them with open arms but learnt the language(s) they use just to make them feel a little more at home.

In author and Potawatomi botanist’s Robin Wall Kimmerer’s beautiful meditation on the gift economy, The Serviceberry, she writes about the acts of reciprocity, or the idea of keeping gifts in motion and making our exchanges more meaningful. It is a book about sharing our abundance with those who need it most, reaching out to our neighbours, our communities, our new teammates. As for language, this line by Kimmerer took my breath away because it applies so perfectly to the value of multilingualism "...the more names a plant has, the greater its cultural importance." Multilingualism as resistance.

Take care of one another, notably those who need that care the most right now, and of course, yourselves.

Thank you for reading.