Abstract
This chapter highlights the potential and practical application of CALL and specifically the use of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) for the language and identity socialization of transnational students. The authors focus on the educational trajectories of 1) children returnees and 2) international migrants who have lived and attended school in the U.S. and now have been uprooted to Mexico as a result of repatriation and/or deportation. The authors advocate creating blended affinity spaces at schools where youth can meet and play digital role-playing games. Game-ecology literacy development within these spaces is detailed through the sharing of game screen shots, blog posts, and the perspectives of transnational students that support this kind of learning within the EFL environment. The chapter concludes with a “call to action” and steps for educators to create such blended affinity spaces for gaming at schools.
We are all longing to go home to some place we have never been—a place half-remembered and half-envisioned we can only catch glimpses of from time to time. Community. Somewhere, there are people to whom we can speak with passion without having the words catch in our throats. Somewhere a circle of hands will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power. Community means strength that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done. Arms to hold us when we falter. A circle of healing. A circle of friends. Someplace where we can be free (Starhawk, 1988, p. 92, emphasis added).
TopIntroduction
Home, for the estimated 1.5 million transnational children caught in the historical circular migration pattern between the U.S. and Mexico border, can be, as Starhawk describes above, a half-remembered, half-envisioned place, that many have never seen, nor known. In the past decade, scholars have begun to bring to light the issues of these children’s fractured schooling and traumatic experiences of trying to adapt to new countries, homes, and sociocultural practices that may be on the one hand in some ways connected to their heritage, but on the other hand vastly disconnected to their lived cultural and linguistic experiences (Medina & Menjívar, 2015; Zúñiga & Hamann, 2006, 2015; Zúñiga & Romero, 2014). These studies specifically have documented the experiences of 1. children returnees, or children who “were born in Mexico, eventually left to the U.S. (generally with their parents or at least one of them) and after some period of residency in the U.S., returned to Mexico” (Zúñiga & Vivas-Romero, 2014, p. 3) and 2. international migrants, who were born in the U.S., many attended school in the U.S., and then moved to Mexico as a result of repatriation and/or deportation (Zúñiga & Vivas-Romero, 2014). With the exception of the small group of researchers and their studies referenced throughout this chapter, the narratives of reverse migration and the voices of children returnees and international migrants, attending schools in Mexico, have not been heard with the same volume as those who remain in the U.S.; the generation 1.5 migrants who continue to attend U.S. schools (Zúñiga & Vivas-Romero, 2014). It can be estimated from the 2010 Mexican Population Census that 350,000 children returnees and 500,000 international migrants now reside in Mexico (Giorguli & Gutiérrez, 2011; Gonzales & Chavez, 2012; Zúñiga & Hamann, 2015). According to Zúñiga and Hamann’s longitudinal survey studies, approximately 420,000 of these children have enrolled in Mexican schools, grades 1-9 alone, and that as many as 330,000 children were born in the United States (2015, p. 644; see also Zúñiga, 2012; Zúñiga & Hamann, 2006).
In this chapter, it is our goal not only to continue to share the experiences of these youth, but also to draw connections to the research in the U.S. on generation 1.5 migrants that shows how increased opportunities for these youth to participate in school-based, out-of-classroom activities have helped them 1) reposition themselves in the eyes of their teachers and peers, 2) develop positive identities, and 3) have success at school (Przymus, 2015, 2016). In comparing the experience of generation 1.5 youth in the U.S. to the context of transnational children in Mexico, we may be able to learn from and detail how this same reconceptualization of learning could be theorized through CALL practice and specifically the promotion of game-ecology language and identity socialization through a peer-facilitated intervention that would create gaming communities of practice in Mexican schools. The overall goal of this chapter is a call to action for educators, specifically in Mexico, but on both sides of the border, to conceptualize and work towards the creation of spaces for such gaming communities of practice at schools. Valuing the identity of transnational children as gamers could have an impact on creating more equitable, social, and educational experiences for these youth.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Transnational Children: Children who have lived in numerous countries, distinguished in this chapter as either, 1) Children Returnees, who were born in Mexico, at some point in their lives moved to the U.S. and now have returned to Mexico due to repatriation and/or deportation, and 2) International Migrants, who were born in the U.S. and now live in Mexico due to repatriation and/or deportation.
Blended Affinity Spaces: Spaces, either face-to-face or virtual, where like-minded groups of individuals, that consist of a blended mix of peers from the same educational community and potentially peers from diverse and often anonymous contexts, interact to perform activities that fall within the individuals’ similar affinities.
V3I: V3I stands for vertical intercultural interpersonal interaction and characterizes communicative interaction between culturally and linguistically diverse youth as a result of top-down teacher, school personnel, parent, or other adult mandated action.
Game Ecology: The game ecology is made up meta-game discourse, or the talk about playing, before, during, and after, either in person or online in chat groups and blog posts, and the intra-game discourse of interacting with other players from around the world within the game interface
H3I: H3I stands for horizontal intercultural interpersonal interaction and is where the motivation for and impetus of communicative interaction between culturally and linguistically diverse youth comes from the youth themselves, based on similar interests, and not as a forced action driven by their teachers, parents, or other adults.
Communities of Practice: Groups of people who share a concern or passion for something they do and learn to do it better as they interact regularly and contribute to the over all group’s desired and shared goals.
Language Socialization: The process of learning how to use the language needed to become a contributing member in specific contexts and groups through the social interaction with members in those groups and contexts through time.
MMPORPGs: An online video game that takes place in a persistent state world with thousands, or even millions of players developing their characters in a role-playing environment.