Emergent Bilingual and Multilingual Learners in California: Californians Together Passing the Torch to the Next Generation of Advocates (1996 to Present)

Abstract

As an immigrant, born to formerly undocumented parents who left Hong Kong for the United States with barely a middle school education and a pair of tourist visas, Tina Cheuk, was separated from her parents for four years. She later joined them at age seven. Upon arriving in the United States, she was one of three English Learners, (ELs) in her entire elementary school. She writes that she did not know what this label would signify until she became a classroom teacher in New York City 15 years later. In her current role as an assistant professor at California Polytechnic State University, part of a network of state universities that prepares approximately 6,000 California teachers annually for public school classrooms (California State University, 2019), Cheuk's work centers on historical and contemporary perspectives of culturally, racially, and linguistically marginalized peoples and environments. As a teacher educator, she prepares future teachers so that they can create more socially just classrooms through deepening their knowledge and practices toward greater civic engagement and advocacy for the most underserved students in their classrooms and schools. Cheuk reflects upon her own personal, professional, and political story because she has seen families torn apart by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and that has strengthened her zeal to work more closely with advocacy organizations in pressuring lawmakers to protect and serve the needs of all students in public school classrooms. Because she believes the work educators do rests on layers upon layers of complex decision making, Cheuk has joined a new generation of activist leaders organized by Californians Together, a statewide advocacy coalition that brings together voices from all segments of the education community, including teachers, administrators, board members, parents, and civil rights non-profit leaders. This article provides a brief history of California Proposition 227, commonly known as the English-only bill, which severely limited instruction in students' home languages, and outlines the formation of Californians Together, which was a reactionary response to Proposition 227. More recently, Californians Together formed the EL Leadership and Legacy Initiative (ELLLI), of which Cheuk is a member. Cheuk closes the article by saying that even though her professional role sits within the community of teacher educators in the academy, she also has the opportunity to join forces with others to advance movement toward shared goals of creating a more socially just educational system. The work of reform then can be more tightly coupled and targeted in achieving the coalition's goals. Individual voices in professional educational learning spaces are weak, but by banding together in support of advancing educational and life outcomes for ELs, the impact of organized advocacy becomes far more coherent and powerful.