Silences and Subtexts of Immigrant and Nonimmigrant Children.

The 2001 Annual Theme issue of Childhood Education focused on migration and education. Guest Editor Navaz Bhavnagri located too many excellent articles on that important topic to include in one issue. Therefore, she will continue to provide these theme-related articles, here and in future issues.

Australia, destination of numerous and varied immigrants, has developed some of the most diverse immigration programs in the world, and debates about these programs are a "permanent feature of the Australian political landscape" (Hage, 1998, p. 15). This article inserts young children's voices into these debates by recounting conversations with immigrant and nonimmigrant Australian 4- and 5-year-old children who have participated in the Preschool Equity and Social Diversity (PESD) project (see Appendix). The conversations explore the complexities that both immigrant and nonimmigrant children face in building an identity in a multicultural Australian society. The author then raises questions about these children's capacity to build an identity free from the nation's political past. Such questions invite discussion about how early childhood staff can help young children construct positive identities in a world where international migration is an enduring reality.

Beginning the Conversations

The PESD project uses semi-structured individual interviews with children,as well as group discussions, stories, and observation of children's play, to explore how children's gender, "race," and class intersect with their personal constructions of "race," gender, and class. To date, over 100 children have participated in the project.

The author's efforts to initiate conversations with the children were aided by a second interviewer and the presence of four anti-bias personal dolls. The dolls served as an icebreaker for conversations, an invitation to play, and a focus for conversations and stories about class, "race," and gender.

In the initial interviews, children responded to semi-structured questions about the differences and similarities among the dolls, which doll looked most like themselves, and which doll they liked the most. In exploring children's responses to these questions, the author found their silences to be as revealing as their words. As Jonathon Silin, noted for his work on silence in early childhood (see Silin, 1995, 1999), expressed it:

Silence can signal resistance as well as oppression, voice can create new moments for social control as well as for personal efficacy. And words are notorious for concealing and transforming as well as [for] revealing the truth of our lives. (Silin, 1999, p. 44)

Australian Immigrant Children's "Knowings" Through the Silences

Kim, a 4-year-old Vietnamese-Australian girl, attended an early childhood center that was strongly committed to including multicultural perspectives. Kim's teacher believed that Kim spoke English sufficiently well to participate in the project. Heather, the co-interviewer, interviewed Kim, and was helped by a Vietnamese-Australian bilingual staff member from Kim's center.

Kim entered the room holding Heather's hand tightly. She quickly fixed her attention on the dolls. She sat down and listened closely as Heather "introduced" the dolls to her, and scrutinized each doll as Heather told her about them. Heather explained to Kim that she wanted to ask her some questions.

Heather:   Do you understand, Kim?
Kim:       [Nods.]
Heather:   When you look at the dolls, can you tell
           me which doll you think looks most like
           you?
Kim:       [Silence. She looks at Heather, then casts
           her eyes downward and points at Olivia.
           She blushes very strongly as she does
           so.]
Heather:   I see. Can you take a good look for me
           and be sure.
Kim:       [Nods and then points again at Olivia, this
           time holding Heather's gaze. She blushes
           again.]

Although silent, Kim's nonverbal response seemed clear and unambiguous. Kim told us that she looked like Olivia, not like Willy, Tom, or Shiree. This was especially noteworthy, as later in the interview she identified facial and skin tones as being the main differences she saw among the dolls.

Kim was not the only child of Vietnamese origin who made this identification. Two of the girls made a similar self-identification and two of the Vietnamese-Australian boys self-identified with Tom. Only one child spoke in response to this question. She said, pointing to Willy, that he looked most like her "... because this one skin most like me." Why did so many non-Anglo immigrant children prefer to identify themselves as Anglo-Australian children? And what significance does that preference have?

With these self-identification comments and silences about skin tone in mind, consider Kim's moment of silence alongside a moment of "voice" and silence in James's first interview. James was a 4-year-old Anglo-Australian child.

Nonimmigrant Australian Children's "Knowings" Through the Silences

Interviewer:   Well, this is Olivia, the last of the dolls
               you will meet today. Is there anything
               you can tell me about Olivia?
James:         She is very pretty.
Interviewer:   What makes her pretty?
Interviewer:   What's that you are pointing at, her dress?
               Is there anything else that makes her
               pretty?
James:         This does.
Interviewer:   What's that, can you use your words to
               tell me?
James:         Legs, these are knees.
               [James then looks at Olivia's face very
               closely for several seconds. The interviewer
               picks up on this cue and then
               asks a question.]
Interviewer:   What about her face, is there anything
               about her face you can tell me?
James:         Her face is lovely like mine because it's
               lighter. It's like Tom's.

James's clarity about Olivia's loveliness resounded alongside his silence about Willy. James, like nearly all (42 out of 44) of the Anglo-Australian children interviewed, offered no comment about "Vietnamese." Of the two Anglo-Australian children who responded to questions about being Vietnamese, one child said that Vietnamese people have "a strange name" and "shop in markets," and the other said that they have "yellow faces" and "black hair." They did not have anything positive to say about Vietnamese people.

Layered into Anglo-Australian children's silences about Willy and about being Vietnamese were comments that Willy was "not Australian." One child specifically said that Willy "could not be Australian." This comment prompted additional questions about being Australian.

Immigration, and National and Ethnic Identity

The children who responded to questions about being Australian did so by saying that being Australian meant having "white" skin. In addition, these children said that even though Willy was born in Australia, he is still Vietnamese; that Willy and Shiree are not Australian because "they've got different faces"; and that Willy and Shiree must ask God if they want to be Australian. They thought that God might allow Shiree to be Australian, but not Willy.

These children's clarity that "whiteness" constituted being Australian was most powerfully exemplified by James:

Interviewer:   These dolls all live in Australia. I was
               wondering, do you live in Australia?
James:         I was born in Australia.
Interviewer:   Do you think all of these dolls were born
               in Australia?
James:         No.
Interviewer:   Can you tell me why you think so?
James:         [Interrupts and points to Shiree.] That's
               Aboriginal, isn't she?
Interviewer:   Yes, that's right. So was she born in
               Australia?
James:         [Shakes his head.]
Interviewer:   No? Where do you think she was born?
James:         In Aboriginal.
Interviewer:   In Aboriginal land. And can you tell me
               about Australia? What it means to live in
               Australia?
James:         That you all have white skin.
Interviewer:   So what about Willy? Do you think
               Willy was born in Australia?
James:         [Silence.]

Anglo-Australian children also used "whiteness" as a category when saying which doll looked most like them and when discussing Shiree. One child's only comment during her interview was in response to the question, "Which doll looks most like you?" Pointing to Olivia, she said, "I'm white." These findings echo those of Ramsey (1991) and Lawrence (1991), who found that racial characteristics, such as skin color, were more salient in children's thought processes about appearance and identity than were gender characteristics.

Skin Color, Emotion, and the Immigrant

The Anglo-Australian children's focus on Shiree's skin color also was associated with uncertainty and discomfort. At times, a small number of the Anglo-Australian children (anywhere from 6 to 14 percent) actively rejected Shiree. Most often, this discomfort and rejection made itself apparent through powerful silences. The only silences in Jamie's interview, for example, followed questions about Shiree.

Interviewer:   Shall we choose another one? Which one
               would you like to choose next?
Jamie:         [Silence, then points at Shiree.]
Jamie:         That one, would you like to pick her up?
               [Silence; then Jamie shakes her head,
               shifting nervously.]
Interviewer:   What do you notice about this one?
               [Silence as Jamie averts her eyes.]
Jamie:         I don't know.
Interviewer:   I shall tell you that her name is Shiree,
               and Shiree is an Aboriginal doll. Do you
               know any Aboriginal people?
               [Silence, and Jamie shakes her head
               again.]
Interviewer:   No. Have you heard about Aboriginal
               people?
               [Silence.]
Interviewer:   What do you know about Aboriginal
               people?
               [Silence.]
Jamie:         No. Put it back.

The other five children's responses to questions about Shiree were accompanied by a strong verbal or physical refusal to touch or hold Shiree. Sally expressed this simply and powerfully:

Interviewer:   This one is Shiree. Would you like to
               hold her?
Sally:         No. Yuk.

It is interesting to note that Sally had wanted to hold each of the other dolls.

What do these reactions mean for immigrant and nonimmigrant children and their identities as Australians? The implications are consistent with research in the United States (see Aboud & Doyle, 1996) and Australia (Black-Gutman & Hickson, 1996) showing that white children often have negative biases against black children. Many of Australia's immigrants are black, and how white children perceive "blackness" will be an important part of how young black immigrants regard themselves and their experience of immigrating to Australia.

Silin (1999) suggests that silence can mean many things, including thoughtfulness, resistance, oppression, concealment, and inner dialogue. Which of these meanings are true for the immigrant and nonimmigrant children interviewed?

Reading the Voices and Silences

Using Silin's suggestions, we can ask ourselves about the children's moments of voice and silence. Did the Vietnamese-Australian immigrant girls really believe that they looked like Olivia? Were the Vietnamese-Australian immigrant children resisting efforts to classify them? Were the Vietnamese-Australian children rejecting their self-identity in terms of their physical appearances? Were the Anglo-Australian children showing racial bias; if so, what implications does this have for their relationships with ethnically diverse immigrant children?

Why was Shiree, a dark-skinned doll the most rejected doll? Why was Olivia the only one considered pretty? What implications does this have for dark-skinned Australian immigrants?

Using Understandings From Research on Children's Conceptions of "Race" and Cognition 

Many years of international research on "race" and children clearly shows that young children can and do demonstrate racial prejudice (Aboud & Doyle, 1996; Hirschfeld, 1995) as early as 3 years of age (Black-Gutman & Hickson, 1996). In addition, both black children and white children consistently show a positive bias towards "whiteness" and a negative bias towards "blackness." More specifically, black children consistently choose white dolls as those that they would like to play with, and as the ones they consider "pretty" (Go-Paul-McNicol, 1995); they showed a bias towards lighter skins (Averhart & Bigler, 1997); and they showed racial preference to whites (Johnson, 1992; Kelly & Duckitt, 1995).

To this extent, the responses of the children involved in the PESD project are predictable. Similar findings have been explained generally in terms of children's cognitive capacities. For instance, 22 out of the 24 pieces of North American, Australian, and European research published in the last five years on this topic explain children's attitudes to racial and ethnic difference in terms of both specific and general cognitive skills and concepts. More specifically, these mainly Western Piagetian-based studies explained ethnic/racial bias in terms of children's inability to hold multiple perspectives, and to their inherent need to sort and classify objects and people (see Black-Gutman & Hickson, 1996). From a Western cognitive standpoint, preschool children cannot view other "races" as acceptable or desirable; therefore, bias develops. Bias may decrease with age, as children begin to take multiple perspectives. It also decreases as children begin to see other "races" as similar to their own and to see differences among individuals of the same "race."

Issues in Using the "Race" and Children Research

From a cognitive perspective, therefore, the Anglo-Australian children's constructions of "whiteness," "blackness/brownness," being Australian, and being Vietnamese link to their need to sort and classify and their inability to hold multiple perspectives. Bias, seen from this perspective, will reduce as these skills develop in each individual child. According to this perspective's proponents, bias is a developmental phenomenon that naturally disappears. Still we are led to ask: Are all young non-Anglo immigrant children in Australia doomed to experience ethnic and racial bias at the hands of young Anglo-Australian children? Is prejudice in the preschool just an inevitable part of the immigrant experience in Australia?

Spivak (1990) cautions us to be vigilant and to reflect on what is "edited out" (p. 21) of our accounts of "race." In particular, she asks us to reflect on the silences in our accounts of "race," and especially on the questions that cannot be asked in our story.

Why Don't All Children Sort People by Skin Color?

First of all, many young Australian children sort people by skin color and other physical attributes, rather than by equally obvious differences (e.g., gender or clothing). What makes physical characteristics such as skin color so prominent in young children's classifications? Spivak (1990, p. 62) calls this process of basing decisions on skin color "chromatism." Why is chromatism a part of how many children understood who they are? And how does chromatism intersect with the ways that young immigrant Australian children construct their identities as Australians?

Why Do Some Children Use an Inaccurate Color Descriptor To Classify People?

The second phenomenon that emerged from the project is that several Anglo-Australian children used the term "white" to describe themselves and others. What makes children use an inaccurate color descriptor? Some children struggled to name their skin color, using such words as "pinkish" or "sort of light, gray-brown." Why did these children come to use a term ("white") that is a politicized signifier of difference, rather than an accurate descriptor of color?

Why Do Children Show Discomfort With the Darker Skinned Doll?

Third, the Anglo-Australian children interviewed were considerably uncomfortable with Shiree, but not with Willy. Children shied away from Shiree even though they: 1) knew more about being Aboriginal than they did about being Vietnamese, and 2) saw both Willy and Shiree as different from themselves. Why did Shiree create such discomfort?

Cognitive accounts of children's constructions of "race" do not answer these questions because they edit out the political realities that make possible young children's current constructions of "race." A history of colonialism and white supremacy (Hage, 1998) has formed, and continues to inform, the discourses of difference into which all Australian children--immigrant and nonimmigrant alike--are "interpellated" (Althusser, 1984, p. 37). In particular, it edits out ways of speaking about two things: 1) the traces between children's ways of making sense of themselves and others and adults' ways of making sense of others, particularly through their "chromatism" (Spivak, 1990, p. 62), and 2) the complex negotiation of identities in which children such as Kim engage as they knowingly self-identify as "white" in a country where "White backlash" against immigrants, especially Asian immigrants, has been a constant feature of the political landscape (Hage, 1998).

Using Understandings of the Politics of Anti-immigration

Many adult Australians still categorize people, and discriminate against them, on the basis of chromatism. The late 1990s saw the rise of the "politics of resentment, best exemplified in the phenomenon of Hansonism" (Rizvi, 1998, p. 5). Pauline Hanson was elected to Australia's national parliament on a neo-fascist political platform that was based, among other things, on anti-immigration policies (see Hage, 1998). Kim and the other children in this article were in their preschool years as Hansonism was at its height. Can we reasonably make a link between the two? Can we reasonably deny a link between the two?

Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin (1998) argue that cultural hegemony in postcolonial times operates through a complex but invisible network of family connections, emotions internalized over time, and beliefs about what is possible for individuals and groups to achieve. The power to define what should be said and thought about social and cultural difference and diversity works much like a rhizome does for a plant. A rhizome bears many roots and shoots, each of which helps the plant to grow. The connections between the roots and shoots can be hard to see, because even as they are separate from each other, they overlap and intertwine with other roots and shoots. The plant's shoots receive nourishment from a complex network of connections to the roots. The link between a specific shoot and a specific root is not clear, but each has a part to play in the overall growth and nourishment of the plant.

There is not one single "root" that produces the shoots or ideas that create racism. In other words, we cannot point to a simple, singular, ongoing, monolithic process of domination that makes racism possible (Ashcroft et al., 1998). Instead, constructions of "race" grow through difficult-to-see, yet overlapping and intertwining discourses of culture, difference, and identity that insinuate themselves into our present from our collective pasts. While the links to roots grown from past discourses of "race" will be hard to see in the present ways that racism shoots forth, they do, in fact, exist. They exist through family, through others, and through the ways that children internalize cultural meanings. The connections are undeniable.

Hansonism is an obvious way in which the roots of racism from past colonial discourses of "race" and white supremacy have become part of the Australian present. Issues of anti-immigration intertwine with, among other things, white Australians' fears of unemployment and racial hybridization (or inbreeding). Can immigrant children remain untouched by Australia's racist past and present? Is it enough to say that children's chromatism results from a natural cognitive development that drives them to sort and classify? What does it mean for early childhood education professionals who are trying to build positive identities in young children, if the professionals see children's immature cognitive ability as a sufficient rationale for chromatism?

Using Understandings of Negotiating Migrant Identities

Of the Australian migrant experience, Gunew (1990, p. 66) asked: "... if you are constructed in one particular kind of language, what kinds of violence does it do to your subjectivity if one then has to move into another language, and suppress whatever selves or subjectivities were constructed by the first?" To what extent is Kim's silence a resistance to the hard task demanded of her that she rebuild, in English, her established ways of thinking and being? To what extent does her self-identification with Olivia tell us that she is an Australian-Vietnamese? To what extent is her embarrassment a recognition that we may not see her that way?

Kim's blushes suggest that she knew, and knew that the interviewers knew, that she did not look like Olivia. Despite this, she remained adamant in her choice. In addition, despite her English-language proficiency and the presence of a bilingual assistant, Kim chose not to speak.

Through her choices, Kim did more than just sort and classify. She engaged with the politics of sorting and classifying people. Whatever the reason for Kim's choice, she knew that her choice had implications for her and others. Hage (1998) offers another powerful insight into why children like Kim might resist positioning themselves as the "other" to nonimmigrant white Australians. "The multicultural national will, like all nationals will, tolerate national otherness, but only in so far as this national otherness is in no danger of constituting a counter-will" (p. 112).

Implications for Practice

The PESD project makes it is clear that preschool children can use sophisticated concepts of "race" and nation to define themselves and others, and that they understand how power and control is linked to "racial" understandings. The children know that the ways they categorize people matters to adults, and that skin color somehow matters, as well. Questions about why this happens can have many different answers, depending on the individual immigrant child. However, it is important that all early childhood staff learn more about how migration shapes young children's sense of self and, ultimately, a sense of nation and nationality. To do this, early childhood staff must listen to what immigrant and nonimmigrant children say about themselves and their nation.

You can use art, story, and discussion groups to begin conversations. Ask children what they know about the different cultural groups represented in the classroom. Questions used in this project included: "Can you tell me what you know about being Aboriginal?" "Have you heard the word `Vietnamese'? What does it mean to you?" and "What does it mean to be an Australian?"

Listen carefully to what immigrant children say, and pay attention to what they don't say. Note their silences as much as you note their words. Think about moments when the immigrant children seemed uncomfortable or embarrassed, and then ask, "Are the children being thoughtful, resistant, feeling oppressed, concealing something from me, and / or involved in an inner dialogue?" Answer these questions by drawing on the child's experience of being an immigrant and considering how these experiences might reduce them to silence.

Reflect on what nonimmigrant children's expressions--both verbal and nonverbal--tell you about how they feel about themselves and others. Ask yourself to what extent it links with past and present expressions of racism against immigrants in your country.

Use what children share to plan a program that helps immigrant children feel strong, safe, and proud about who they are as immigrants. Actively seek information from children about their lives so that all children feel safe, and so they will want to share their cultural interests, values, and rituals.

Use what children share with you to plan a program that helps each nonimmigrant child learn to respect and celebrate the ethnic diversity in your classroom. Regularly ask yourself if your program honors the ethnic specificity and diversity of each child in your group.

Conclusion

There is much to value in seeking, listening to, and answering children's words and silences on what it means to live with migration. Their words and their silences can challenge us to: 1) think more deeply about how they come to understand "race" and nationality, 2) see how national identities in the present are constructed by discourses from the past, 3) understand how the rhizome of colonial and white supremacy discourses still exist, and 4) acknowledge how children's understandings and "knowings" are inextricably linked with that of adults.

Given the possibilities that children's silences and words offer us, educators cannot afford to simply wait for them grow out of sorting and classifying themselves and others into nationalities and "races"; nor can we change children's discourses of "race" and nationality without also changing those within the adult world. Early childhood staff can strive to help immigrant and nonimmigrant children build positive self-identifies if they seek, hear, and answer their voices and their silences on "race" and nationality.

The Four Anti-bias Persona Dolls:

Shiree, representing someone from an Aboriginal-Australian family.

Willy, representing someone from an immigrant Vietnamese-Australian family.

Olivia, representing someone from a rich nonimmigrant Anglo-Australian family.

Tom, representing someone from a poor nonimmigrant Anglo-Australian family.

References

Aboud, F., & Doyle, A. (1996). Does talk of race foster prejudice or tolerance in children? Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 28(3), 161-170.

Althusser, A. (1984). Essays on ideology. London: Verso.

Ashcroft, B., Griffiths, G., & Tiffin, H. (1998). Key concepts in post-colonial studies. London: Routledge.

Averhart, C., & Bigler, R. (1997). Shades of meaning: Skin tone, racial attitudes, and constructive memory in African American children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 67, 363-388.

Black-Gutman, D., & Hickson, F. (1996). The relationship between racial attitudes and social-cognitive development in children: An Australian study. Developmental Psychology, 32(3), 448-456.

Go-Paul-McNicol, S. (1995). A cross-cultural examination of racial identity and racial preference of preschool children in the West Indies. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 26(2), 141-152.

Gunew, S. (1990). Questions of multiculturalism. In S. Harasym (Ed.), The post-colonial critic (pp. 59-66). New York: Routledge.

Hage, G. (1998). White nation: Fantasies of white supremacy in a multicultural society. Amandale, NSW: Pluto Press.

Hirschfeld, L. (1995). Do children have a theory of race? Cognition, 54, 209-252.

Johnson, D. (1992). Racial preference and biculturality in biracial preschoolers. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 38(2), 233-244.

Kelly, M., & Duckitt, J. (1995). Racial preference and self-esteem in black South African children. South African Journal of Psychology, 25(4), 217-223.

Lawrence, V. (1991). Effect of socially ambiguous information on White and Black children's behavioural and trait perceptions. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 37(4), 619-630.

Ramsey, P. (1991). The salience of race in young children growing up in an all-White community. Journal of Educational Psychology, 83(1), 28-34.

Rizvi, F. (1998). Higher education and the politics of difference. Australian Universities' Review, 41(2), 5-6.

Silin, J. (1995). Sex, death and the education of children: Our passion for ignorance in the age of AIDS. New York: Teachers College Press.

Silin, J. (1999). Speaking up for silence. Australian Journal of Early Childhood, 24(4), 41-45.

Spivak, G. (1990). The post-modern condition: The end of politics? (with G. Hawthorn, R. Aronson, J. Dunn). In S. Harasym (Ed.), The post-colonial critic (pp. 1734). New York: Routledge.

For more information about the PESD project, log on to www.dare.ed.fac.unimelb.edu.au, or contact the author at [e-mail]

Glenda MacNaughton is Associate Professor, Department of Learning and Educational Development, Faculty of Education, University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Appendix

The PESD project is an ongoing mixed method study of 4- and 5-year-olds' understandings of gender, "race, "and class. Researchers in the University of Melbourne's Centre for Equity and Innovation in Early Childhood began the study in 1999. To date, the project has been supported by funding from the Australian Research Council, the University of Melbourne Special Initiatives Grant Program, and a University of Melbourne Faculty of Education Research Grant.

The project has been undertaken in six early childhood centers to date. In two of the centers, researchers conducted the project over 15 weeks with 20 children, who participated in 3 individual interviews, 15 weekly story and discussion group sessions, and three 2-hour free-play sessions with the dolls. In the remaining four centers, the research was conducted over a period of 3 weeks and children participated in 3 individual interviews and 4 story and group discussions; a majority of the children participated in one 2-hour free-play session with the dolls.