Cover not available

Article published In: Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 17:3 (2018) ► pp.366–385

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

The past is prologue

Language policy and nativism in new immigrant contexts

ORCiD logo with link | University of Iowa
 | University of Iowa
 | University of Iowa
Published online: 20 July 2018
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.16038.joh
Abstract
This article examines reactions to the changing linguistic ecology in the U.S. state of Iowa, which is experiencing a demographic phenomenon often referred to as the New Latino Diaspora (NLD) (Hamann, Edmund T., Stanton Wortham, and Enrique G. Murillo Jr. 2002. “Education and Policy in the New Latino Diaspora.” In Education in the New Latino Diaspora: Policy and the Politics of Identity, ed. by Stanton Wortham, Enrique G. Murillo Jr., and Edmund T. Hamann, 1–16. Westport, CT: Ablex Publishing.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). We first examine the historical processes and social structures that link current language policy initiatives within Iowa to local and national nativism. We then analyze public policies and texts to reveal how language ideologies circulate across diverse texts and contexts, forming discourses that shape the experiences of Latin@s in Iowa.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Critical language policy
  • 3.Method: Intertextual and interdiscursive analysis
  • 4.Community responses in new immigrant contexts
  • 5.Public reactions and scripts of interethnic interaction
  • 6.A history of linguistic discrimination within and without Iowa
  • 7.Official English and legal repercussions
  • 8.Educational language policy
  • 9.Discussion
  • References
References (49)
References
Allen, Graham. 2011. Intertextuality. 2nd Edition. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Associated Press. 2002. “Iowa governor signs English only bill.” Quad-City Times, March 21.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bakhtin, M. M. 1986. Speech Genres & Other Late Essays. Austin: The University of Texas Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ball, Stephen J. 1993. “What is Policy? Texts, Trajectories and Toolboxes.” Discourse 131: 10–17.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barakos, Elisabeth. 2016. “Language Policy and Governmentality in Businesses in Wales: A Continuum of Empowerment and Regulation.” Multilingua 35 (4): 361–391. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barakos, Elisabeth and Johann W. Unger. 2016a. “Introduction: Why are discursive approaches to language policy necessary?” In Discursive Approaches to Language Policy, ed. by Elisabeth Barakos and Johann W. Unger, 1–10. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2016b. Discursive Approaches to Language Policy. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Billington, Ray Allen. 1938. The Protestant Crusade, 1800–1860. Gloucester, Massachusetts: Peter Smith.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Blommaert, Jan. 2006. “Language Policy and National Identity.” In An Introduction to Language Policy: Theory and Method, ed. by Thomas Ricento, 1–10. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cincotta-Segi, Angela. 2011. “Signalling L2 Centrality, Maintaining L1 Dominance: Teacher Language Choice in an Ethnic Minority Primary Classroom in the Lao PDR.” Language and Education 25 (1): 19–31. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman. 1992. “Intertextuality in Critical Discourse Analysis.” Linguistics and Education 4 (3), 269–293. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Frese, Stephen J. 2005. “Divided by a Common Language: The Babel Proclamation and its Influence in Iowa history.” History Teacher 39 (1): 59–88. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gallo, Sarah and Stanton Wortham. 2012. “Sobresalir: Latino Parent Perspectives on New Latino Diaspora Schools.” International Journal of Multicultural Education 14 (2): 1–17. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grey, Mark A. 1999. “Immigrants, Migration and Worker Turnover at the Hog Pride Pork Packing Plant.” Human Organization 58 (1): 16–27. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grey, Mark A. and Anne C. Woodrick. 2002. “Unofficial Sister Cities: Meatpacking Labor Migration between Villachuato, Mexico and Marshalltown, Iowa.” Human Organization 61 (4): 364–376. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2005. “Latinos Have Revitalized our Community: Mexican Migration and Anglo Responses in Marshalltown, Iowa.” In New Destinations: Mexican Immigration in the United States, ed. by Víctor Zúñiga and Rubén Hernández-León, 133–154. New York: Russell Sage.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hamann, Edmund T., Stanton Wortham, and Enrique G. Murillo Jr. 2002. “Education and Policy in the New Latino Diaspora.” In Education in the New Latino Diaspora: Policy and the Politics of Identity, ed. by Stanton Wortham, Enrique G. Murillo Jr., and Edmund T. Hamann, 1–16. Westport, CT: Ablex Publishing.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Harding, William L. 1918. “Original Copy of the Babel Proclamation.” German Iowa and the Global Midwest.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hernández, A.N. 2006. “Lawmakers debate English as official language.” Scripps Howard Foundation Wire. July 27, 2006.
Higham, John. 2002. Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860–1925. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Iowa Department of Education. 2010. Educating Iowa’s English Language Learners (ELLs): A handbook for administrators and teachers. Des Moines, IA: Iowa Department of Education.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2017. 2016–2017 Iowa Public School K-12 Limited English Proficient Students (LEP) by District and Grade. Iowa Department of Education.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johnson, David Cassels. 2010. “Implementational and Ideological Spaces in Bilingual Education Language Policy.” International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 13 (1): 61–79. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015. “Intertextuality and Language Policy.” In Research Methods in Language Policy and Planning: A Practical Guide, ed. by Francis M. Hult and David Cassels Johnson, 166–180. Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
King v. Mauro. 2008. Case No. CV6739, (Iowa District Court March 31, 2008).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kristeva, Julia. 1986. “Word, Dialogue, and Novel.” In The Kristeva Reader, ed. by Toril Moi, 34–61. Oxford UK: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Leibowitz, Arnold H. 1984. “The Official Character of Language in the United States: Literacy Requirements for Immigration, Citizenship, and Entrance into American life.” Aztlan, 15 (1): 25–70.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lowenhaupt, Rebecca. 2016. “Immigrant Acculturation in Suburban Schools Serving the New Latino Diaspora.” Peabody Journal of Education 91 (3): 348–365. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McKay, Sandra Lee and Weinstein-Shr, G. 1993. “English Literacy in the U.S.: National Policies, Personal Consequences.” TESOL Quarterly 27 (3): 3. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mertz, Elizabeth. 1982. “Language and Mind: A Whorfian Folk Theory in United States Language Law.” Sociolinguistics Working Paper 931. Accessed at: [URL].
Naples, N. A. (1996). “A Feminist Revisiting of the Insider/Outsider Debate: The ‘Outsider Phenomenon’ in Rural Iowa.” Qualitative Sociology 19 (1): 83–106. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Paciotto, Carla and Gloria Delany-Barmann. 2011. “Planning Micro-Level Language Education Reform in New Diaspora Sites: Two-way Immersion Education in the Rural Midwest.” Language Policy 10 (3): 221–243. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Raffaelli, Marcela and Angela R. Wiley. 2012. “Challenges and Strengths of Immigrant Latino Families in the Rural Midwest.” Journal of Family Issues 34 (3): 347–372. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ricento, Thomas. 2000. Historical and Theoretical Perspectives in Language Policy and Planning. Journal of Sociolinguistics 4 (2): 196–213. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Riffe, Holly A., Shiloh Turner, and Liliana Rojas-Guyler, 2008. “The Diverse Faces of Latinos in the Midwest: Planning for Service Delivery and Building Community.” Social Work & Health 33 (2): 101–110. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rubin, Joan and Björn H. Jernudd (eds). 1971. Can Language Be Planned? Sociolinguistic Theory and Practice for Developing Nations. The University Press of Hawaii.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schmid, Carol L. 2001. The Politics of Language: Conflict Identity, and Cultural Pluralism in Comparative Perspective. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Silverstein, Michael. 1996. “Monoglot ‘Standard’ in America: Standardization and Metaphors of Linguistic Hegemony.” In The Matrix of Language: Contemporary Linguistic Anthropology, ed. by Donald Brenneis and Ronald H. S. Macaulay, 284–306. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove. 2000. Linguistic Genocide in Education – Or Worldwide Diversity and Human Rights? Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
State Data Center of Iowa (2017). Latinos in Iowa: 2017. Des Moines: Iowa Library Services and the Office of Latino Affairs.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tollefson, James W. 1991. Planning Language, Planning Inequality: Language Policy in the Community. London and New York: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2015. “Historical-structural Analysis.” In Research Methods in Language Policy and Planning: A Practical Guide, ed. by Francis M. Hult and David Cassels Johnson, 140–151. Malden: Wiley Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
U.S. Census Bureau. 2016. Quick Facts: Iowa.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
U.S. Department of State (2010). Becoming American: Beyond the Melting Pot. eJournal USA 15, 9, 1–29.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
U.S. English. 2007. Opening Arguments in Iowa Official English Case Heard Today. Accessed at [URL].
Wiley, Terrence G. 1999. “Comparative Historical Analysis of U.S. Language Policy and Language Planning: Extending the Foundations.” In Sociopolitical Perspectives on Language Policy and Planning in the USA, ed. by Thom Huebner and Kathryn A. Davis, 17–37. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
WHOTV (2014). Vandals Spray “Mexico” on Marshalltown Sign. Accessed at: [URL]
Woodrick, Anne C. 2010. “Revitalizing a Midwestern City: Immigrants in Marshalltown.” eJournal USA, 15 (9): 15–20.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wortham, Stanton, Katherine Mortimer, and Elaine Allard. 2009. Mexicans as Model Minorities in the New Latino Diaspora. Anthropology and Education Quarterly 40 (4): 388–404. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (7)

Cited by seven other publications

Johnson, David Cassels, Mengyi Liu, Kara Rash & Maria Slusarek
2025. Advocacy and collaboration in dual language bilingual education policy and practice. Bilingual Research Journal 48:2 ► pp. 155 ff. DOI logo
Johnson, David Cassels, Melanie Carbine & Christine Shea
2024. Challenging deficit ideologies in Spanish heritage language policies and programs. Foreign Language Annals 57:4 ► pp. 944 ff. DOI logo
Park, GoMee
2024. Shifting language orientations: impact of state-mandated assessments on dual language educators’ language ideologies. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 27:2 ► pp. 268 ff. DOI logo
Stephens, Crissa
2023. “This is our country, too”: Embodied Experiences of and Resistance to Neo‐nationalism in a Midwest School District. TESOL Quarterly 57:3 ► pp. 916 ff. DOI logo
Stephens, Crissa
2024. Invisible Policy Brokers: The Political Roles of Interpreters in Educational Policy Negotiations With Language Minoritized Mothers. American Educational Research Journal 61:3 ► pp. 439 ff. DOI logo
Mazlum, Farhad
2022. Is English the world’s lingua franca or the language of the enemy? Choice and age factors in foreign language policymaking in Iran. Language Policy 21:2 ► pp. 261 ff. DOI logo
Han, Yawen & David Cassels Johnson
2021. Chinese Language Policy and Uyghur Youth: Examining Language Policies and Language Ideologies. Journal of Language, Identity & Education 20:3 ► pp. 183 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 13 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue