Normalization of English and Identity Construction of Refugee Background Youth from Burma/Myanmar in US Schools

Abstract

This paper is based on the ethnographic multiple case study of four refugee background youths from Burma at four different schools in a midwestern urban school district in the US. My research finds that the normalization of English constructed the focal youths' language-related identities. I also argue that through this normalization, language difference between school and home became a difference that marginalized the focal youth in their class and racialized their subjectivity.