I think, empirically, we have the data that shows that all communities have complex, rich language practices that they engage in, but people don’t be… - Nelson Flores

We have normalized bilingualism in some public schools in the United States, because people have pushed for the possibility of new listening subject positions in these institutions. So we have to keep thinking about what do we want teachers to be able to do, and how can we transform the institutions to allow them to be able to do that.

you can trace these discourses, they’re consistent throughout history, of putting the onus on racialized communities to undo their own oppression by modifying their behaviors, rather than undoing the structures that actually are the primary challenges that they confront.

I think that all of the money going into it might give you some indication for why people were so defensive about a response that called it into question, because there is a lot of money that’s going into it. I mean, remedial compensatory education, which has been funded by government and nongovernment officials since at least the ’60s, um, that are designed to fix the so-called cultural and linguistic deficits of racialized communities, have always been, um, a very lucrative industry. Um, there’s always been tons of money going into it. I mean, I don’t even know how much money – probably billions of dollars, at this point, honestly. And I always wonder, like, what would the world look like if we actually, like, invested that money in revitalizing communities, and, like ending poverty, and, like, ensuring that children had access to quality healthcare.