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As northeast Wisconsin diversifies, students of color use tools like code-switching to navigate their own identity and community

Quoted: In her research on multilingual and English learners, University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Mariana Pacheco said children as young as 6 or 7 can pick up on the double standard that white, English-dominant students can be placed in a bilingual classroom and be celebrated for their bilingualism, while the same isn’t true for their Spanish-dominant counterparts.

As someone who studies language, Pacheco has always been fascinated with how people who are bilingual learn social knowledge by living in the margins between cultures. Having to code-switch can teach them how society and power function.

“We shouldn’t forget that that consciousness is a resource for them,” she said.

She hopes it serves them in the careers they pursue someday and the policies they support, but perhaps what she admires most is the way they keep trying in the face of resistance.

“They’re not paralyzed by it,” she said.