A Gay Immigrant Student's Perspective: Unspeakable Acts in the Language Class

Abstract

This article focuses on a subset of the student cohort that has, until recently, been largely hidden from view in the literature of language education: gay immigrants. Little is known about what sorts of classroom experiences gay immigrant students find engaging or alienating, or why this sort of knowledge is needed. This case study uses interview excerpts to examine self‐accounts of three classroom interactions that were significant to Pablo (a pseudonym), a 25‐year‐old gay man from Mexico studying English at a community college in the United States. The analysis takes into account Pablo's premigration experiences, together with relevant literature on second language socialisation, sexual migration, and gay language learners. By tracing Pablo's responses to the shutting down of gay themes, the presumption of heterosexuality, and the potential risks of signalling a gay identity, the analysis shows how gay topics and perspectives are constructed as unspeakable in the language classroom. The findings indicate that it can be difficult for gay immigrant (and international) students to establish communicative legitimacy in the language classroom, which can restrict learning opportunities. The classroom challenges that gay immigrants encounter—and the identity savvy they require—yield useful insights about language teaching in this age of mass migration.