Silencing the Subaltern: Nation-State/Colonial Governmentality and Bilingual Education in the United States

Abstract

This article introduces the concept of nation-state/colonial governmentality as a framework for analyzing the ways current language ideologies marginalize the language practices of subaltern populations. Specifically, the article focuses on the innate limitations of re-appropriating nation-state/colonial governmentality in an attempt to advocate for the subaltern. It offers the case of bilingual education in the United States to demonstrate this point. It argues that although the struggle for bilingual education in the United States re-appropriated nation-state/colonial governmentality in ways that advocated for language-minoritized populations, this re-appropriation was eventually reincorporated into hegemonic language ideologies that continue to reproduce colonial relations of power that erase the fluid language practices of language-minoritized students. The article ends with some recommendations for moving toward a language ideology that allows subaltern voices to be heard outside of colonial relations of power.