In the second of our staff spotlights highlighting why we do the work we do at DCAYA, Ramina, our Director of Housing Stability & Youth Initiatives, discusses her vision of a community that empowers all its children and youth.
Code-switching, generally, is the act of alternating between different languages or dialects in a conversation or depending on setting. Often, people who are multilingual code-switch. Sometimes we braid our languages to get at the heart of our meaning. And sometimes we compartmentalize to shield ourselves from the real or perceived violence that comes with vulnerability.
Multilingual people often have a language of their heart–of family, of home, of identity–that contrasts with the language of polite, passive conversations. This can look like speaking English, rather than our native languages, outside the home in order to avoid the suspicion or pity of having to explain our heritage. So, we work to fit our language to meet the demands of these settings.
Sometimes, we code-switch by minimizing our trauma to become specters of “respectable.” We swallow down our rage and pain with the false tonic of fear fed to us through a history of systemic oppression and through present risk of violence. Rather than speaking from our hearts and telling our stories, we stay silent in the unfeeling face of polite, passive conversations.
In this way, most of us are multi-lingual. And we code-switch all the time, usually to protect ourselves.
The systems that work under the auspices of serving our communities code-switch too. These systems say things like “marginalized populations” instead of “people historically and presently denied their human rights to safety and dignity.” They say “homeless people” instead of “people denied their human right to housing.” They say “we must work on equity in schools” instead of “all children have the right to a quality education in a safe place, and there are those who have had this right historically, and presently, stripped from them. And we must correct this heinous wrong.”
These systems code-switch usually to protect the status quo of polite, passive conversation.
I am tired of polite, passive conversation. So, let me say frankly what I believe:
I believe that we all have the right to a home, and that we are denied that right through a spectrum of injustices from the lack of affordable housing to substandard housing conditions to homelessness. I believe that we all have the right to a quality education, and that we are denied that right through a spectrum of injustices from insurmountable student debt to the inability to access out of school time programming to the inability to access any schooling at all. I believe that we have the right to our identities and our stories without fear of violence, and that we are denied this right through a spectrum of injustices from forced politeness to incarceration and murder. I believe that the vast majority of us have had these rights denied us through some injustice on these spectra.
I also believe that since we are many, we can build and improve our community to become so large, so organized, and so brave that we can ensure the upholding of these rights—by protecting one another, by centering those that systems historically and presently oppress most, and by speaking the language of our hearts.
And I believe that at the core of it all, at the very basis of the creation and preservation of community, we must work with and for our children and youth to build a better world and better life than we have now. I believe our children and youth have the right to exist in a community without the fear of the denial of their right to a safe place to sleep, learn, and grow, a community that cares for them, a community that works to empower rather than stifle their ability to become leaders who continue to build and improve their communities.
I believe that we can braid our languages and identities to get to the soul of our community.
Please consider supporting DCAYA’s advocacy to support this vision of building a community where every child and young person has a safe place to sleep, learn, and grow.