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“My teacher always told me, ‘Ah, Clara, Clara, Clara, you have to be like this“!!”
Clara is a young Santomi woman who immigrated to Portugal for her high school education. She grew up in Sao Tome and PrincipeA group of islands located in the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa. study About this immigration experience.
colonial The Portuguese occupied the islands in the 1490s Becoming independent In 1975, the new republic adopted Portuguese as the sole official language.
Today, more than 98% of Santoméas speak Portuguese. The rest of the population is mostly elderly people who speak one of four creole languages. In the post-colonial period, Portuguese universities continued to receive students from Portuguese-speaking African countries.
Clara’s first and only language is Portuguese. But she says her teachers often make comments about the way she speaks. European Portuguese and Santómec Portuguese are very similar. They can be compared to British English and American English. For example, there are some differences in vocabulary, pronunciation, and sentence structure.
It’s not surprising that Clara’s Portuguese teacher picks on her pronunciation. This reflects the idea that one language is superior to others. This has an impact on people’s identity and sense of self.
in my study I found that a key issue for Santoméa students who immigrated to Portugal was that they had to identify as both native Portuguese speakers and as Black Africans, which meant reconciling two potentially conflicting identities—when the majority of native Portuguese speakers were white. This meant they also had to come to terms with racism.
Forming an identity
As a sociolinguist, my Research sets out to explore the use of Santomeian Portuguese by young immigrants in Portugal and how this relates to their identity.
How do the Santomías of Portugal cope with being both native Portuguese speakers and Black Africans? Answering this question is key to understanding the role of language in the identification of racial boundaries and identities.
To answer this question, I conducted in-depth interviews with 18 young Santoméan immigrants (7 women and 11 men) in two towns in central Portugal. Clara was one of them.
Identity is formed on multiple levels simultaneously. It only makes sense when we engage in a process called identification (do I identify with this person?) and authentication (is this authentic?). For example, think about your experience of school or peer groups and the different cliques that existed—the nerds, the popular kids, the jocks, the loners. All of these gain meaning in relation to other groups.
So how do Santomías in Portugal identify themselves? My research shows that young Santomías identify themselves on three levels: their language use and customs, their ethnic classification, and the PALOP social category.
“PALOP” stands for Portuguese-speaking African countriesmeaning Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa. It refers to the six African countries where Portuguese is the official language – Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Sao Tome and Principe and Equatorial Guinea. The Santos language uses this word to describe people from these countries.
I looked at every level of identity formation.
Language use and practice
It can be said that Santomíans are linguistically aligned with Portuguese nationals, as they speak the same language. But from the Portuguese perspective, the wide variety of Portuguese spoken by African students is a problem. For Santomíans, poor command of the language is often cited as one of the main factors that hinder their success in school. Not being understood by the Portuguese is not conducive to the integration of Santomíans.
But many Santomíans found that the Portuguese understood their strategies. The most common was imitation, as one study participant stressed:
We have to speak in a way that makes them try to imitate so that they can understand us.
But even so, the Santomí say they are often reminded that there are three main characteristics to the way they speak: slang, speed and the different pronunciations of their r sounds.
Because of these factors, the Santoméans do not feel united with the Portuguese nationals, even though they speak the same language.
Racial classification
In terms of racial classification, the Santomés also did not conform to the Portuguese criteria, but instead aligned with other African students.
For Sao Tome people, racial conversations and customs in Portugal are different from what they experience back home. Rather than the common black/white distinction, the focus in Sao Tome is on distinctions between local ethnolinguistic groups (groups unified by a common ethnicity and language). All of these groups consider themselves black.
Some Santomías participants expressed how strange and uncomfortable they felt as a minority in Portugal. In Portugal, Santomías learned that they were seen as black and what that meant in a predominantly white society. This process was mostly derogatory because there were few benefits to being black in Portugal.
Portuguese-speaking African countries
Finally, identity is located through belonging to the social category of Portuguese-speaking African countries. Here belonging is not so clear-cut.
Sometimes Santomians place themselves in this category, sometimes not. Portuguese-speaking African countries The students were Portuguese-speaking Africans whose mother tongue was not Portuguese. The Santomíans I interviewed lived with Guineans and Cape Verdeans, most of whom spoke a Creole as their first language.
In contrast, most younger Santomians usually have no common language other than Portuguese. As a result, Santomians are not always in line with other members of the Portuguese-speaking African community in terms of language usage.
Why this matters
The findings reflect two main divisions: true Portuguese speakers versus non-true Portuguese speakers; and white versus black people.
What does this mean and why is it important?
The idea, probably from colonial times, is that “authentic” speakers of Portuguese are white, and “non-authentic” speakers of Portuguese are black. But Santomias are black people who speak Portuguese as their first (and often only) language. Therefore, young Santomias in Portugal have to fit into different categories depending on their needs.
read more:
How dimensions of human inequality affect who and what we are
My findings highlight the importance of race in the identity formation of these Santomías. Race presents challenges that can lead to poorer performance in school and poorer employment opportunities. The Portuguese Santomías learn that they are considered black and what that means in a predominantly white society.
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