âBut your face, it looks like youâre English:â LangCrit and the experiences of multilingual Japanese-Canadian children in Montréal

This inquiry explores how young multilingual, racialized children in Montreal, Quebecnavigate and understand their multilinguality and multi-ethnicity. While the visagelinguistique (linguistic face) of Montreal is now securely French in terms of language usein public space and public signage, as per the intentions of Bill 101, with increasingimmigration from non-European (non-White) countries since the 1980s, the face of thecarriers of the French language has become less and less White. Quebec’s officialmonolingual French language policy (Bill 101), however, neatly divides people into threelinguistic categories: Francophone, Anglophone, and Allophone (speakers of languagesother than French or English). These categories mask considerable linguistic diversity,especially in Montreal, the city that receives almost 95% of immigrants to Quebec. Theyalso disavow the visible, or racialized aspects of identity. Nevertheless, it appears thatidentity for multilingual youth in Montreal is shaped by the intersections of the subjectas-heard and the subject-as-seen (Sarkar, Low, & Winer, 2007). As a result, the study ofmultilingualism and multilingual identities in Montreal needs to be informed by atheoretical perspective that can account for the intersections of audible and visibleidentities. Taking a social approach to multilingualism and drawing on language policyand critical race theory scholarship, I developed one such theoretical lens, which I havecoined LangCrit (Critical Language and Race Theory).I engaged in a qualitative and exploratory case study inquiry with fourmultilingual Japanese-Canadian children, ages four to six, in their homes in Montreal.The guiding principal of my methodology was a commitment to engaging in researchwith young children, rather than about them. Two interrelated streams of findingsemerged from data I generated with the children during home visits, one related tomethodology, the other related to theoretical understandings of multilingualism. Withrespect to the first, I found four guiding criteria for doing research with young children:1) fostering respectful relationships; 2) being playful; 3) using creative methods; and 4)carving out spaces to engage alone with the children. These created the contexts forconversations with the children about their understandings of their language practices.With respect to the latter, three common themes emerged: 1) strong multilingual andmultiethnic identities; 2) fixed and fluid perceptions of language and languaging; and 3)intersections of audible and visible identity. In short, the children demonstrated a keensense of what languages are appropriate to use with whom and where. These ideas seemto be shaped by their impressions of not only what language one speaks (subject-as-heard),but also how they look (subject-as-seen). The children use this knowledge tolanguage flexibly as they follow or resist social expectations for language use. The thesiscloses with a discussion of methodological, theoretical, and pedagogical implications ofthe inquiry.

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