Speaking American:

A Journey Across Borders, Languages, and Cultures

What are we planning?

This is a country where we speak English, not Spanish.
Then-Presidential candidate Donald Trump
Republican primary debate in Ronald Regan Library
14 September 2016

The 2016 Presidential campaign and its aftermath highlight the volatile intersections between
national identity, language diversity, and immigration in the United States. The barrage of daily
news stories flashing photos of refugees and immigrants being turned away at airports or arrested
and deported, as well as the resulting social, economic, and legal entanglements disturb us as we
currently navigate the immigration process together with our 11-year-old daughter. Further, we
recognize these developments as the most recent in a long history of discrimination of people who
travel here to work, learn, and build lives based not only on economic opportunity but also on the
fundamentals of democracy, all of which explicitly involve the processes of translating meaning
across many cultures and languages. The English language and its use as a lingua franca in this
country does not subordinate this multiplicity of heritage languages, dialects, and cultures through
which individuals and members of communities understand themselves as American. However
labeled, multi-, pluri-, trans-, daily realities here constantly emerge through many languages,
dialects, and language practices.

In this context, we put our training as English as a Second Language (ESL) educators to work,
reporting evidence of language diversity and opening conversations with colleagues, friends, and
family members about the role of multiple languages and cultures in shaping everyday meaning and
communication along our journey from Kentucky to the Pacific Northwest. The four questions
below guide us:
In what ways are English and its use diverse along our route?
What language practices shape this diversity?
Who is shaped by these practices?
How does all of this matter locally, nationally, and internationally?

The resulting narrative on Twitter and our WordPress blog, we hope, will bring our previous
research and experience, discoveries along our journey, discussions with you, and conversations at
two academic conferences to bear on the larger debates over language diversity, national identity,
and immigration.

How can you participate?

follow us engage us in daily deliberation via our Twitter account and WordPress blog
share Tweet and post
o questions and comments on your own daily language practices or those you observe
o news stories, digital media, and research with timely connections to the discussion
o sites and events you suggest we investigate along our route
o encouragement!

*Note: We ask that contributions critically (evidence-based reason) and imaginatively

(artistic/aesthetic appeals to emotion and reason) approach the issues humbly with respect for
multiple viewpoints shaped by a wide range of diverse backgrounds. Speech and rhetoric that
 intentionally or unintentionally denigrate or otherwise offend the fundamental dignity of cultures,
languages, and individuals are not welcome and will be erased and possibly reported, if necessary.

What are our goals?

journey by car across eight states between Kentucky and the Pacific Northwest, creating
opportunities for you to guide our research and to deliberate the value of how and why We
the People translate meaning across dialects of English and across whole languages as part
of our daily experience
connect these insights to the larger debates over language diversity, national identity, and
immigration
continue to develop ourselves professionally as teachers and researchers by joining and
learning from academic communities dedicated to equitable and diverse educational
practices