Coloniality of Power, Immigration, and the English-Spanish Asymmetry in the United States

Abstract

This essay explores the structuring logics of the English-Spanish asymmetry in the United States by bridging world-systems analysis, humanities-based analyses of language asymmetries, and sociological approaches to language, immigrant incorporation, identity formation, and ethnic politics. By focusing on the relation power/ language, we hope to underscore the importance of colonialism, imperialism, and immigration as constitutive historical processes leading to the formation of the Latino ethnicity and the development of English-Spanish asymmetry in the United States. Our essay illustrates how despite an unprecedented, continuous rise in immigration from Spanish-speaking countries over the past four decades, the English-Spanish asymmetry has been reinforced by several interrelated logics that include the hegemony of English in the global geopolitics of language as well as strong social norms, values, and social movements that resist a rise in the status of Spanish. We argue that coloniality of power informs power relations and regimes designed to regulate behavior, including language-regulating mechanisms that have shaped the English-Spanish asymmetry in the United States through global and national projects (e.g., nation-building, educational, and media projects) entangled in translocal histories.

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