What is Social Power

This autoethnographic study shares the author's journey as a multilingual speaker in South Korea, Singapore, the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States (US) over a 15-year period. In each of these settings, she faced unique challenges and was afforded different allowances depending on her social power, which was mediated by her sociocultural background. These social dynamics also produced different patterns of identity negotiation depending on how she positioned herself and how others positioned her. The key findings suggest that language learning in an English as a second language (ESL) context is not only linked to linguistic challenges but also tied to ongoing identity negotiation. By sharing her autoethnographic critical reflections, she hopes to connect her personal accounts with larger social issues such as the marginalizing experiences that minoritized students may undergo. Ultimately, this chapter illustrates how she has developed as a multilingual language learner, academic student, and researcher, which she hopes will resonate with her fellow multilingual speakers.