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Article published In: Translation and Translanguaging in Multilingual Contexts
Vol. 10:2 (2024) ► pp.236–254

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“When there’s something wrong, it’s the colour”

Translating race in Chile’s multilingual classrooms

 | Universidad Bernardo O’Higgins | Utrecht University
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with Utrecht University.

Published online: 13 May 2024
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https://doi.org/10.1075/ttmc.00135.mor
Abstract
Haitian pupils challenge the homogenous and monolingual imaginary of the Chilean classroom primarily given their limited proficiency in Spanish and their skin colour. One bottom-up strategy implemented by some schools is the recruitment of a Haitian intercultural facilitator, whose aim is to offer linguistic and cultural support primarily through interpretation and translation. The main objective of the present article is to explore how Haitian intercultural facilitators mediate the intersection between language and race in emerging multilingual Chilean classrooms. In order to do so, the article analyses three in-depth interviews with Haitian intercultural facilitators employing the main conceptual tools offered by the model of linguistic production and circulation developed by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. The main results outline that both Haitian pupils and Haitian intercultural facilitators go through a process of racialisation carried out by the rest of the school community. In turn, this affects how Haitian pupils are perceived and treated, as well as how Haitian facilitators can mediate the tensions emerging at the intersection between language and race. These findings represent novel insights into the complex but little explored multilingual schooling processes in the Global South.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Language and race in the Chilean school
  • 3.Language and power
  • 4.Methods
  • 5.Results and discussion
    • 5.1Racialised pupils
    • 5.2Racialised Haitian intercultural facilitators
  • 6.Conclusion
  • References
References (39)
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