Introduction

“Linguistic ideologies…influence our understanding of what is usual, they shape a constellation of common sense beliefs about language and language use.” (McGroarty, 2010). The implicit, understated nature of language ideologies is what makes them both incredibly important and extremely challenging to study. What is taken for granted as common sense, or accepted as common knowledge, is very rarely explicitly discussed in our daily lives, and so in order to analyze an ideology we often must take a rather indirect approach. Additionally, these ideologies are in no way static, and are in fact extremely dynamic, and McGroarty emphasizes that the experiences of individuals and groups, which develop and change over time, serve as a source of constant variation in linguistic ideology.

For the purposes of this study, I chose to interview individuals in Greenfield, CA, with the intent to uncover some of the ideologies surrounding indigenous language use in the Salinas Valley. I was drawn to this topic because, while I have a strong interest in indigenous language and cultural revitalization, I have been admittedly ignorant of the great diversity of languages right in my backyard. As a central coast native, I was surprised to learn of the Oaxacan indigenous languages that were brought here by migrant farmworkers, and was curious as to whether I was alone in my ignorance, or whether these languages and cultures have been “invisibilized” throughout the region, as have been many native cultures. This study is an attempt to look at how these languages (and, often, the people who speak them) are viewed within the community of Greenfield.

 Background

California’s Salinas Valley has forged a long and colorful relationship with Mexico through waves of immigration that have shaped the agricultural labor force. In the early 1900s, Mexican workers began arriving en masse to replace the predominantly Chinese labor force in California industrial farms. In the 1930s however, an onslaught of anti-immigrant sentiment led to the deportation of thousands of migrant farmworkers, many of them Mexican. The onset of WWII brought a reversal in US policy toward Mexican immigrants, primarily due to the economic drive to fill the labor shortage with a cheap, exploitable labor force. So the Bracero program was born, and roughly 100,000 Mexican workers were contracted per year until 1965. (Gonzalez, 2000). Up until the early 1990s, these migrant farmworkers were predominantly mestizo, non-indigenous Mexicans. However, with the signing of NAFTA in 1994, agricultural tariffs were reduced, devastating the indigenous farmers of traditional crops (such as corn) in southern Mexico who relied on those subsidies to compete with foreign markets. This caused a huge new wave of immigration, but this time the migrant population was mainly indigenous, from the Mixtec, Triqui, or Zapataco groups of Oaxaca. (Gonzalez, 2000)

The Salinas Valley is comprised of migrant farmworkers from all of these waves of immigration, from multi-generational mestizos with their extended families (many of whom have developed proficiency in English) to younger indigenous families or single men (often monolingual speakers of their native language). “The Central Coast is perhaps the most diverse California region in terms of different indigenous languages spoken, with large concentrations of Mixteco, Triqui and Zapoteco.” (Kresge, 2007). While outsiders may view the migrant farmworker community as somewhat homogenous, the reality is that it is incredibly diverse, reflecting both the cultural diversity of Mexico and the ethnic tensions and discrimination that have long existed. In an overview of Oaxacan communities in California, the Institute for Rural Studies reported on the variety of challenges faced by indigenous farmworkers: “Despite their Mexican origins, these immigrants possess numerous characteristics that set them apart from their non-indigenous (“mestizo”) counterparts. They speak a variety of indigenous languages, most of which do not have written forms. Many speak little or no Spanish, making traditional outreach challenging. Many of these migrants have low levels of literacy and education and are often poorer than their non-indigenous counterparts. They have also faced centuries of discrimination and marginalization within Mexico” (Kresge 2007). These challenges are intensified by their relative isolation and lack of acceptance within the existing farmworker community.

Methodology

I conducted brief interviews with passersby in downtown Greenfield over the course of a weekend in February. I had a list of six questions, five of which were open-ended, translated into Spanish. Additionally, the majority of the respondents were native Spanish speakers, and so I began each interview with a bit of rapport-building with them in Spanish, as I have found that to be a useful way to bridge the culture and social gap, and develop a more open and honest dialogue. I interviewed 10 people, 6 of whom had Spanish as their first language, 2 of whom had English as their first language, and 2 of whom had Mixteco as their first language. The interviews ranged in length from 5-15 minutes, and were largely conversational and informal in tone. Several times I was given the opportunity to ask follow-up questions, or additional questions that were provoked by an individual’s response, and I did so in order to gain a richer data sample. I took notes during each interview, and took a few minutes after each one to record important details and my initial impressions. After all of the interviews were completed, I reviewed my notes to look for patterns, common themes, and surprising or significant responses.

Findings

The first major theme that emerged amongst the majority of respondents were the recognition/knowledge of at least one or more indigenous languages spoken in the community. This surprised me, slightly, because of the strong history of “invisibilization” of native peoples in this country. However, all of the Spanish-speaking respondents acknowledged at least one of the indigenous languages in the region (with Zapateco as the least-frequently named). Neither of the two native English speakers named any indigenous languages when asked what languages were spoken in the community, listing only English and Spanish. When I named a few of the indigenous languages of the community, they expressed vague recognition of the names, but were surprised to hear that many individuals were monolingual in these languages. The two Mixteco speakers, a mother and her daughter, had the most comprehensive knowledge of languages in the region, each naming English, Spanish, Triqui, Mixteco, and Zapateco. Overall, the responses that I heard demonstrated at least some level of awareness of indigenous languages in the community; however, this didn’t seem to translate into a widespread awareness of the diversity of the indigenous languages spoken in the community, with the notable exception of the two Mixteco speakers. One possible explanation for their heightened awareness of linguistic difference is the long history of discrimination that the indigenous community has experienced, and continues to experience. Peter Trudgill argued that “language can be a very important factor in group identification, group solidarity and the signalling of difference, and when a group is under attack from outside, signals of difference may become more important and are therefore exaggerated” (2000).

The second theme that emerged in these interviews was the notably strong viewpoints of all respondents on the topic of providing interpretation services for speakers of indigenous languages, especially in medical and legal contexts. Four of the six native Spanish speakers indicated that they did not feel that translation and interpretation services should be provided to indigenous language speakers, with two further explaining that they felt that migrants needed to learn Spanish, at least, or English, if they were going to live in and be a part of the community. The remaining six respondents all indicated that they strongly felt that translation and interpretation should be provided whenever possible to indigenous language speakers in the community, with a few going on to say that the community should invest greater resources in training these interpreters and providing these services.

My final formal question in each interview was focused on finding out whether any of the respondents would be interested, if given the opportunity, in learning one of the indigenous languages spoken in the Salinas Valley. Given the tensions that I had read about, and observed a bit in some of the earlier responses, I expected very few positive responses to this question, particularly among those respondents that did not support efforts to provide indigenous language translation and interpretation. However, seven out of ten respondents expressed at least some interest in learning one of those languages, with Triqui as the most frequently chosen language. The three respondents who did not express an interest, two Spanish speakers and one English speaker, listed various reasons, among them that it seemed “like a waste of time,” and “pointless,”, with one individual asking me “for what?”

Because I was fortunate enough to encounter speakers of Mixteco, I continued my conversation with them a little longer, asking a few questions to try to uncover their ideologies about their own language use. When asked how they chose which language to speak (especially in public contexts), they told me that it mainly depended on where they were. At home, they spoke Mixteco, with the daughter more often switching in and out of Spanish and Mixteco. At the grocery store, or out in town in general, they tended to speak in Spanish so as not to draw too much attention to themselves. Occasionally, they did speak Mixteco in public, but only when they encountered other speakers or were in a larger group; they said that they very rarely spoke it when it was just the two of them in public. This self-reported modification of language use based on physical location echoed what I read in Peter Trudgill’s (2000) discussion of Spanish and Guarani in Paraguay; namely, that while many features of social situations are involved in determining which language to use, the most frequently cited was geographic location, followed by relationship between speakers, with Spanish as the typical default.

Conclusion

The very small number of people that I interviewed for this study, compared with the population of the Salinas Valley, signifies that I can in no way generalize these findings to the community at large. However, the individuals that I encountered in these interviews, and their sometimes surprising responses to my questions, demonstrates the idea of constant variation in linguistic ideology that I mentioned previously. While my own independent research told me the dividing lines between the indigenous and non-indigenous communities in the Salinas Valley were very strict, with strong examples of discrimination and prejudice, my experience in these interviews showed me a much more nuanced picture. Ideologies cannot be taken as representative of the views of entire groups of people; to do so would be to discount the agency of the great many individuals that comprise these groups, and their beliefs and experiences that have shaped their worldviews. In short, the snapshot of linguistic ideology that I have taken with these interviews represents a bit of the diversity that exists within this community, and does not serve to reduce this variety to blanket statements about groups of people.

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References

González, J. (2000). Harvest of empire: A history of Latinos in America. New York: Viking.

Kresge, L. (2007). Indigenous Oaxacan Communities in California: An Overview. California Institute for Rural Studies (November). Retrieved from http://www.ncfh.org/pdfs/7340.pdf

McGroarty, M. E. (2010). Language and ideologies. In N. H. Hornberger & S. L. McKay (Eds.), Sociolinguistics and language education (pp. 3-33). Tonawanda, NY: Multilingual Matters/Channel View Publications.

Trudgill, P. (2000). Sociolinguistics: An introduction to language and society. London: Penguin Books.